Sunday, May 18, 2008

The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger

  • Life is a game that one plays according to the rules.
  • Everybody goes through phases and all, don't they?
  • Some people you shouldn't kid, even if they deserve it.
  • That's the whole trouble. When you're feeling very depressed, you can't even think.
  • Goddam money. It always ends up making you blue as hell.
  • Certain thing they should stay the way they are. You ought to be able to stick them in one of those big glass cases and just leave them alone.
  • If a girl looks swell when she meets you, who gives a damn if she's late?
  • If you do something too good, then, after a while, if you don't watch it, you start showing off. And then you're not as good any more.
  • If she was decent enough to let you get sexy with her all the time, you at least shouldn't talk about her that way.
  • Just because somebody's dead, you don't just stop liking them, for God's sake--especially if they were about a thousand times nicer than the people you know that're alive and all.
  • Don't you think there's a time and place for everything?
  • The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of the mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one.
  • You're a student--whether the idea appeals to you or not. You're in love with knowledge.
  • You're not the first person who was ever confused and frightened and even sickened by human behavior.
  • I'm not trying to tell you that only educated and scholarly men are able to contribute something valuable to the world. It's not so. But I do say that educated and scholarly men, if they're brilliant and creative to begin with--which, unfortunately, is rarely the case--tend to leave infinitely more valuable records behind them than men do who are merely brilliant and creative. They tend to express themselves more clearly, and they usually have a passion for following their thoughts through to the end. And--most important--nine times out of then they have more humility than the unscholarly thinker.
  • It's hopeless, anyway. If you had a million years to do it in, you couldn't rub out even half the "Fuck you" signs in the world. It's impossible.
  • You can't ever find a place that's nice and peaceful, because there isn't any. You may think there is, but once you get there, when you're not looking, somebody'll sneak up and write "Fuck you" right under your nose.
  • How do you know what you're going to do till you do it? The answer is, you don't.

3/16/2007

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