Salinger Books Quotes & Sayings

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 cocoanut. 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 breakingly. 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

I took my son's name. I didn't take my husband's name. — Elizabeth Edwards

42. If soldiers are punished before they have grown attached to you, they will not prove submissive; and, unless submissive, then will be practically useless.
If, when the soldiers have become attached to you, punishments are not enforced, they will still be useless.
43. Therefore soldiers must be treated in the first instance with humanity, but kept under control by means of iron discipline. This is a certain road to victory.
44. If in training soldiers commands are habitually enforced, the army will be well-disciplined; if not, its discipline will be bad. — Sun Tzu

I'm going to be acting all my life. But, while doing that, I will try to avoid the trappings of fame. — Randeep Hooda

What really knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn't happen much, though. — J.D. Salinger

I asked him what, if anything, got him down about teaching. He said he didn't think that anything about it got him exactly down, but there was one thing, he thought, that frightened him: reading the pencilled notations in the margins of books in the college library. — J.D. Salinger

When I take my hand out of this blanket," he thought, "my nail will be grown back, my hands will be clean. My body will be clean. I'll have on clean shorts, clean undershirt, a white shirt. A blue polka-dot tie. A gray suit with a stripe, and I'll be home, and I'll bolt the door. I'll put some coffee on the stove, some records on the phonograph, and I'll bolt the door. I'll read my books and I'll drink coffee and I'll listen to music, and I'll bolt the door. I'll open the window, I'll let in a nice, quiet girl
not Frances, not anyone I've ever known
and I'll bolt the door. I'll ask her to read some Emily Dickinson to me
that one about being chartless
and I'll ask her to read some William Blake to me
that one about the little lamb that made thee
and I'll bolt the door. She'll have an American voice, and she won't ask me if I have any chewing gum or bonbons, and I'll bolt the door. — J.D. Salinger

You figured most of them would probably marry dopey guys. Guys that talk about how many miles they get to a gallon in their goddam cars. Guys that get sore and childish as hell if you beat them at golf, or even just some stupid game like ping-pong. Guys that are very mean. Guys that never read books. — J.D. Salinger

The greater problems of history are not solved; they are merely forgotten. — Edward O. Wilson

I'm not one to let such a striking man pass without looking my fill. — Donna Grant

In most cases, the truth is a blade that does not need to be sharpened, and we almost never need to twist the knife. Because as a listener we can empathize with the fear that what we hear might hurt, we can also work to apply gentleness when speaking. I — Ethan Nichtern

There are authors I truly enjoy to read, like John Irving and Don Delillo and Vollman and Hubert Selby Jr. and Hunter S. Thompson. And then there are writers that, while I enjoy their work, I read as a challenge to myself, to sharpen my knives, like Goethe or Genet or Faulkner or Joyce or Salinger. And I have a terrible weakness for music biographies. They are the best books to take on the road. I don't even have to like the band to enjoy the book. Want a wonderful literary anecdote? And watch your toes, because I'm dropping names like bricks. My favorite book of all time is Among The Dead by Michael Tolkin. Wonderful, dark, funny book. — Sammy Winston

All our reporters and editors now work seamlessly in print and online. This integration has transformed the way we work. I believe this is vital to the success and growth of newspapers. — Lionel Barber

Death sanctifies. It's solemn enough to make its own shrine, where it happens. — Charlotte Armstrong

Separated by so much more than distance and lifestyle, even their memories of a shared childhood have faded from their minds. — Tabitha Suzuma

This is of unspeakable importance. Please send any books on the structure of the human heart that I have not read — J.D. Salinger

You will have to make decisions far worse. You are going to have to learn to think before you act, but never to regret your decisions, right or wrong. Otherwise, you will slowly begin to not make decisions at all. — Raymond E. Feist

It wasnt fair..
3 days away from the beginning of the harvest,
2 days away from salvation,
a breath away from redemption. — Yasmina Khadra

Girls with their legs crossed, girls with their legs not crossed, girls with terrific legs, girls with lousy legs, girls that looked like swell girls, girls that looked like they'd be bitches if you knew them. It was really nice sightseeing, if you know what I mean. In a way, it was sort of depressing, too, because you kept wondering what the hell would happen to all of them. When they got out of school and college, I mean. You figured most of them would probably marry dopey guys. Guys that always talk about how many miles they get to a gallon in their goddam cars. Guys that get sore and childish as hell if you beat them at golf, or even just some stupid game like ping-pong. Guys that are very mean. Guys that never read books. Guys that are very boring - But I have to be careful about that. I mean about calling certain guys bores. I don't understand boring guys. I really don't. — J.D. Salinger

Everybody is different. Some writers can write reams of great books and then J. D. Salinger wrote just a few. Beethoven wrote nine symphonies. They were all phenomenal. Mozart wrote some 40 symphonies, and they were all phenomenal. That doesn't mean Beethoven was a lesser writer, it's just some guys are capable of more productivity, some guys take more time. — Billy Joel

Sit, then, as if you were a mountain, with all the unshakeable, steadfast majesty of a mountain. A mountain is completely natural and at ease with itself, however strong the winds that try to bother it, however thick the dark clouds that swirl around its peak. Sitting like a mountain, let your mind rise and fly and soar — Sogyal Rinpoche

The rest, with very little exaggeration, was books. Meant-to-be-picked-up books. Permanently-left-behind books. Uncertain-what-to-do-with books. But books, books. Tall cases lined three walls of the room, filled to and beyond capacity. The overflow had been piled in stacks on the floor. There was little space left for walking, and none whatever for pacing. — J.D. Salinger

On A Beautiful Mind, there was a wall of math. — Josh Lucas

Congress's definition of torture in those laws - the infliction of severe mental or physical pain - leaves room for interrogation methods that go beyond polite conversation. — John Yoo

Express your regrets to the right people and you will be encouraged positively — Sunday Adelaja

I'll read my books and I'll drink coffee and I'll listen to music, and I'll bolt the door.
( A Boy in France : Saturday Evening Post CCXVII, March 31, 1945) — J.D. Salinger

She was always reading, and she read very good books. — J.D. Salinger

While the consequences are often quite hellish, I am absolutely and perhaps permanently against ignoring books recommended from the heart by very nice people and strangers; it is too risky and inhuman; also the consequences are often painful in a fairly charming way. — J.D. Salinger

God bless ladies with costly, tasteful clothes and touching, dirty fingernails that champion gifted, foreign poets and decorate the library in beautiful, melancholy fashion! My God, this universe is nothing to snicker at! — J.D. Salinger

Had J.D. Salinger known who John Hinckley and mark David Chapman were before they bought his books or took them out of the library? Would it have mattered if he had? Had he returned the royalties he received from those purchases? — Adam Langer

Meant-to-be-picked-up books. Permanently-left-behind books. Uncertain-what-to-do-with books. But books, books. — J.D. Salinger

President John F. Kennedy's Cigars
On February 7, 1962, President Kennedy announced to his staff that he needed some help finding as many of the prestigious Cuban Petit Upmann cigars as possible. He let it be known that he would like to have 1,000 of these cigars by the next morning. Being the President of the United States, his wish was granted when, on the morning of February 8th, his Press Secretary Pierre Salinger came in and deposited 1,200 cigars on Kennedy's desk. Smiling, Kennedy opened his desk, took out a document and signed it, banning importation of all Cuban-made products into the United States. Some years later when asked about that moment, Salinger said that there were actually 1,201 cigars. — Hank Bracker