J. D. Salinger

Don't ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody.

They didn’t have too much dough

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.

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.

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.’ ”

It’s such a stupid question, in my opinion. I mean how do you know what you’re going to do till you do it? The answer is, you don’t. I think I am, but how do I know? I swear it’s a stupid question.

People never notice anything.

I felt so lonesome, all of a sudden. I almost wished I was dead.

Mothers are all slightly insane.

In New York, boy, money really talks--I'm not kidding.