Quotes for Friday from J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye

Anyway, it was December and all, and it was as cold as a witch's teat, especially the top of that stupid hill. [4]

Life is a game, boy. Life is a game that one plays according to the rules. [8]

Almost every time somebody gives me a present, it ends up making me sad. [52]

That's the thing about girls. Every time they do something pretty, even if they're not much to look at, or even if they're sort of stupid, you fall half in love with them, and then you never know where the hell you are. [73]

I think I really like it best when you can kid the pants off a girl when the opportunity arises, but it's a funny thing. The girls I like best are the ones I never feel much like kidding. Sometimes I think they'd like it if you kidded them - in fact, I know they would - but it's hard to get started, once you've known them a pretty long time and never kidded them. [78]

He's so good he's almost corny, in fact. I don't exactly know what I mean by that, but I mean it. [80]

New York's terrible when somebody laughs on the street very late at night. You can hear it for miles. [81]

'If you was a fish, Mother Nature'd take care of you, wouldn't she? Right? You don't think them fish just die when it gets to be winter, do ya?
'No, but - '
'You're goddam right they don't,"... [83]

I swear to God, if I were a piano player or an actor or something and all those dopes thought I was terrific, I'd hate it. I wouldn't even want them to clap for me. People always clap for the wrong things. [84]

Take the Disciples, for instance. They annoy the hell out of me, if you want to know the truth. They were all right after Jesus was dead and all, but while He was alive, they were about as much use to Him as a hole in the head. All they did was keep letting him down. [99]

Goddam money. It always ends up making you blue as hell. [113]

... I hate actors. They never act like people. They just think they do. Some of the good ones do, in a very slight way, but not in a way that's fun to watch. And if any actor's really good, you can always tell he knows he's good, and that spoils it. [117]

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 good any more. [126]

And I have one of these very loud, stupid laughs. I mean if I ever sat behind myself in a movie or something, I'd probably lean over and tell myself to please shut up. [134]

You take somebody that cries their goddam eyes out over phony stuff in the movies, and nine times out of ten they're mean bastards at heart. I'm not kidding. [140]

Who wants flowers when you're dead? Nobody. [155]

It's funny. All you have to do is say something nobody understands and they'll do practically anything you want them to. [157/8]

You can hit my father over the head with a chair and he won't wake up, but my mother, all you have to do to my mother is cough somewhere in Siberia and she'll hear you. She's nervous as hell. [158]

But what I mean is, lots of time you don't know what interests you most till you start talking about something that doesn't interest you most. [184]

The man falling isn't permitted to feel or hear himself hit bottom. [187]

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 --Wilhelm Stekel [188]

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. [189]

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. [202]

It's funny. Don't ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody. [214]
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