All mothers are slightly insane.

— J.D. Salinger

All these angels start coming out of the boxes and everywhere, guys carrying crucifixes and stuff all over the place, and the bunch of them - thousands of them - singing “Come All Ye Faithful” like mad. Big deal. It’s supposed to be religious as hell, I know, and very pretty and all, but I can’t see anything religious or pretty, for God’s sake, about a bunch of actors carrying crucifixes all over the stage. When they all finished and started going out the boxes again, you could tell they could hardly wait to get a cigarette of something. I saw it with old Sally Hayes the year before, and she kept saying how beautiful it was, the costumes and all. I said old Jesus probably would’ve puked if he could see it.

— J.D. Salinger

All these handsome guys are the same. When they're done combing their goddam hair, they beat it on you.

— J.D. Salinger

An artist's only concern is to shoot for some kind of perfection, and on his own terms, not anyone else's.

— J.D. Salinger

And I can't be running back and forth forever between grief and high delight.

— J.D. Salinger

And I have one of those 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.

— J.D. Salinger

Answer Professor Mandell’s letter when you get a chance and the patience. Ask him not to send me any more poetry books. I already have enough for 1 year anyway. I am quite sick of it anyway. A man walks along the beach and unfortunately gets hit in the head by a coconut. His head unfortunately cracks open in two halves. Then his wife comes along the beach singing a song and sees the 2 halves and recognizes them and cries heart breaking. That is exactly where I am tired of poetry. Supposing the lady just picks up the 2 halves and shouts into them very angrily “Stop that!” Do not mention this when you answer his letter, however. It is quite controversial and Mrs. Mandell is a poet besides.

— J.D. Salinger

Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around - nobody big, I mean - except me. And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff - I mean if they're running, and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be.

— J.D. Salinger

Anyway, I'm sort of glad they've got the atomic bomb invented. If there's ever another war, I'm going to sit right the hell on top of it. I'll volunteer for it, I swear to God I will.

— J.D. Salinger

As much as anything else, it was a stare, not so paradoxically, of a privacy-lover who, once his privacy has been invaded, doesn't quite approve when the invader just gets up and leaves, one-two-three, like that.

— J.D. Salinger