The Catcher in the Rye Quotes

ASK OUR MANAGER TO FIND A BETTER QUOTE
OR IT'S PAGE NUMBER
GET HELP

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.

Page number : 11
18943

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

Page number : 126
6457

Among other things, you'll find that you're not the first person who was ever confused and frightened and even sickened by human behavior. You're by no means alone on that score, you'll be excited and stimulated to know. Many, many men have been just as troubled morally and spiritually as you are right now. Happily, some of them kept records of their troubles. You'll learn from them—if you want to. Just as someday, if you have something to offer, someone will learn something from you. It's a beautiful reciprocal arrangement. And it isn't education. It's history. It's poetry.

Page number : 111
3979

I'm quite illiterate, but I read a lot.

Page number : 10
3633

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.

Page number : 101
3104

I am always saying "Glad to've met you" to somebody I'm not at all glad I met. If you want to stay alive, you have to say that stuff, though.

Page number : 52
2644

I like it when somebody gets excited about something. It's nice.

Page number : 108
2452

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 in love with them, and then you never know where the hell you are. Girls. Jesus Christ. They can drive you crazy. They really can.

Page number : 42
2259

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.

Page number : 110
2169

Mothers are all slightly insane.

Page number : 32
1974

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

Page number : 92
1867

When you're dead, they really fix you up. I hope to hell when I do die somebody has sense enough to just dump me in the river or something. Anything except sticking me in a goddam cemetery. People coming and putting a bunch of flowers on your stomach on Sunday, and all that crap. Who wants flowers when you're dead? Nobody.

Page number : 90
1698

I don't exactly know what I mean by that, but I mean it.

Page number : 47
1608

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.

Page number : 78
1560

Certain things, 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.

Page number : 71
1436

People are always ruining things for you.

Page number : 51
1434

when you're not looking, somebody'll sneak up and write "Fuck you" right under your nose.

Page number : 119
1242

All morons hate it when you call them a moron.

Page number : 26
1153

I'm the most terrific liar you ever saw in your life. It's awful. If I'm on my way to the store to buy a magazine, even, and somebody asks me where I'm going, I'm liable to say I'm going to the opera. It's terrible.

Page number : 9
1117

If a girl looks swell when she meets you, who gives a damn if she's late?

Page number : 72
1105

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. I know it's crazy.

Page number : 101
1105

People never notice anything.

Page number : 5
1070

People always clap for the wrong reasons.

Page number : 49
1016

The best thing, though, in that museum was that everything always stayed right where it was. Nobody'd move. You could go there a hundred thousand times, and that Eskimo would still be just finished catching those two fish, the birds would still be on their way south, the deers would still be drinking out of that water hole, with their pretty antlers and they're pretty, skinny legs, and that squaw with the naked bosom would still be weaving that same blanket. Nobody's be different. The only thing that would be different would be you. Not that you'd be so much older or anything. It wouldn't be that, exactly. You'd just be different, that's all. You'd have an overcoat this time. Or the kid that was your partner in line the last time had got scarlet fever and you'd have a new partner. Or you'd have a substitute taking the class, instead of Miss Aigletinger. Or you'd heard your mother and father having a terrific fight in the bathroom. Or you'd just passed by one of those puddles in the street with gasoline rainbows in them. I mean you'd be different in some way—I can't explain what I mean. And even if I could, I'm not sure I'd feel like it.

Page number : 71
902

I was trying to feel some kind of good-bye. I mean I’ve left schools and places I didn’t even know I was leaving them. I hate that. I don’t care if it’s a sad good-bye or a bad good-bye, but when I leave a place I like to know I’m leaving it. If you don’t you feel even worse.

Page number : 2
885

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.

Page number : 73
770

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

Page number : 30
683

Grand. There's a word I really hate. It's a phony. I could puke every time I hear it.

Page number : 6
672

It was that kind of a crazy afternoon, terrifically cold, and no sun out or anything, and you felt like you were disappearing every time you crossed a road.

Page number : 3
649

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.

Page number : 118
604

I can be quite sarcastic when I'm in the mood.

Page number : 12
586

I can’t explain what I mean. And even if I could, I’m not sure I’d feel like it.

Page number : 71
510

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

Page number : 66
485

I think that one of these days," he said, "you're going to have to find out where you want to go. And then you've got to start going there. But immediately. You can't afford to lose a minute. Not you.

Page number : 110
479

This fall I think you're riding for—it's a special kind of fall, a horrible kind. The man falling isn't permitted to feel or hear himself hit bottom. He just keeps falling and falling. The whole arrangement's designed for men who, at some time or other in their lives, were looking for something their own environment couldn't supply them with. Or they thought their own environment couldn't supply them with. So they gave up looking. They gave it up before they ever really even got started.

Page number : 109
467

I used to think she was quite intelligent , in my stupidity. The reason I did was because she knew quite a lot about the theater and plays and literature and all that stuff. If somebody knows quite a lot about all those things, it takes you quite a while to find out whether they're really stupid or not.

Page number : 61
415

Sleep tight, ya morons!

Page number : 31
403

It's partly true, too, but it isn't all true. People always think something's all true.

Page number : 5
378

Ask her if she still keeps all her kings in the back row.

Page number : 20
362

I don’t give a damn, except that I get bored sometimes when people tell me to act my age. Sometimes I act a lot older than I am - I really do - but people never notice it. People never notice anything.

Page number : 5
352

Life is a game, boy. Life is a game that one plays according to the rule."Yes, sir. I know it is. I know it."Game, my ass. Some game. If you get on the side where all the hot-shots are, then it's a game, all right-I'll admit that. But if you get on the other side, where there aren't any hot-shots, then what's a game about it? Nothing. No game.

Page number : 5
334

I know he's dead! Don't you think I know that? I can still like him, though, can't I? 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.

Page number : 100
314

It's not too bad when the sun's out, but the sun only comes out when it feels like coming out.

Page number : 91
287

She was terrific to hold hands with. Most girls if you hold hands with them, their goddam hand dies on you, or else they think they have to keep moving their hand all the time, as if they were afraid they'd bore you or something. Jane was different. We'd get into a goddam movie or something, and right away we'd start holding hands, and we wouldn't quit till the movie was over. And without changing the position or making a big deal out of it. You never even worried, with Jane, whether your hand was sweaty or not. All you knew was, you were happy. You really were.

Page number : 46
280

I don't even know what I was running for—I guess I just felt like it.

Page number : 3
263

This is a people shooting hat," I said. "I shoot people in this hat.

Page number : 13
260

I think, even, if I ever die, and they stick me in a cemetery, and I have a tombstone and all, it'll say 'Holden Caulfield' on it, and then what year I was born and what year I died, and then right under that it'll say 'Fuck you.' I'm positive, in fact.

Page number : 119
259

Then the carousel started, and I watched her go round and round...All the kids tried to grap for the gold ring, and so was old Phoebe, and I was sort of afraid she's fall off the goddam horse, but I didn't say or do anything. The thing with kids is, if they want to grab for the gold ring, you have to let them do it, and not say anything. If they fall off, they fall off, but it is bad to say anything to them.

Page number : 124
249

I figured I could get a job at a filling station somewhere, putting gas and oil in people's cars. I didn't care what kind of job it was, though. Just so people didn't know me and I didn't know anybody. I thought what I'd do was, I'd pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes. That way I wouldn't have to have any goddam stupid useless conversations with anybody. If anybody wanted to tell me something, they'd have to write it on a piece of paper and shove it over to me. They'd get bored as hell doing that after a while, and then I'd be through with having conversations for the rest of my life. Everybody'd think I was just a poor deaf-mute bastard and they'd leave me alone.

Page number : 116
248

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. I mean you can’t help it sometimes.

Page number : 85
247