The Catcher in the Rye Quotes - Page 4 | Just Great DataBase

I don’t even like old cars. I mean, they don’t even interest me at all. I'd rather have a goddam horse. A horse is at least human

You ought to go to a boys' school sometime. Try it sometime," I said. "It's full of phonies, and all you do is study so that you can learn enough to be smart enough to be able to buy a goddam Cadillac some day, and you have to keep making believe you give a damn if the football team loses, and all you do is talk about girls and liquor and sex all day, and everybody sticks together in these dirty little goddam cliques. The guys that are on the basketball team stick together, the Catholics stick together, the goddam intellectuals stick together, the guys that play bridge stick together. Even the guys that belong to the goddam Book-of-the-Month Club stick together.

I said old Jesus probably would've puked if He could see it - all those fancy costumes and all. Sally said I was a sacrilegious atheist. I probably am. The thing Jesus really would've liked would be the guy who plays the kettle drums in the orchestra.

She was always reading, and she read very good books.

It's nice when somebody tells you about their uncle. Especially when they start out telling you about their father's farm and then all of a sudden get more interested in their uncle.

Sometimes you get tired of riding in taxicabs the same way you get tired riding in elevators. All of a sudden, you have to walk, no matter how far or how high up.

I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all… 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

¿Quién necesita flores cuando ya se ha muerto? Nadie.

إن الكتب التي تثير اهتمامي بالفعل هي تلك التي عندما أنتهي من قراءتها أرغب في أن يكون المؤلف صديقا عزيزا لي وأستطيع أن أخابره بالتليفون في أي وقت شئت

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

She's quite skinny, like me, but nice skinny. Roller-skate skinny. I watched her once from the window when she was crossing over Fifth Avenue to go to the park, and that's what she is, roller-skate skinny. You'd like her.

You're a real prince. You're a gentleman and a scholar, kid.

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.

I thought it was, "If a body catch a body," Anyway, i keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and no ones around - nobody big I mean - except me. And I'm standing on the edge of this 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 are going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I'd do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know its crazy, but that the only thing I's really like to be. I know its crazy.

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.

All these angels start coming out of the boxes and everywhere, guys carrying crucifixes and stuff all over the place, and the whole 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.

I have a feeling that you're riding for some kind of a terrible, terrible fall. But I don't honestly know what kind. . . Are you listening to me?"Yes."You could tell he was trying to concentrate and all.It may be the kind where, at the age of thirty, you sit in some bar hating everybody who comes in looking as if he might have played football in college. Then again, you may pick up just enough education to hate people who say, 'It's a secret between he and I.' Or you may end up in some business office, throwing paper clips at the nearest stenographer. I just don't know. But do you know what I'm driving at, at all?

I held hands with her all the time...that doesn't sound like much, I realize, but 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.

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

I knew it wasn’t too important, but it made me sad anyway.

Up home we wear a hat like that to shoot deer in, for Chrissake," he said. "That's a deer shooting hat.""Like hell it is." I took it off and looked at it. I sort of closed one eye, like I was taking aim at it. "This is a people shooting hat," I said. "I shoot people in this hat.

I felt like jumping out the window. I probably would've done it, too, if I'd been sure somebody'd cover me up as soon as I landed. I didn't want a bunch of stupid rubbernecks looking at me when I was all gory.

God, I wish you could have been there.

You don't always have to get too sexy to get to know a girl.

I was sixteen then, and I'm seventeen now, and sometimes I act like I'm about thirteen. Sometimes, I act a lot older than I am--I really do. But people never notice it. People never notice anything.

People always think something's all true. I don't give a damn, except that I get bored when people tell me to act my age. Sometimes I act a lot older than I am, I really do. But people never notice. People never notice anything.

...What gets me about D.B., though, he hated the war so much, and yet he got me to read this book A Farewell to Arms last summer. He said it was so terrific. That's what I can't understand. It had this guy in it named Lieutenant Henry that was supposed to be a nice guy and all. I don't see how D.B. could hate the Army and war and all so much and still like a phony like that. I mean, for instance, I don't see how he could like a phony like that and still like that one by Ring Lardner, or that other one he's so crazy about, The Great Gatsby. D.B. got sore when I said that, and said I was too young and all to appreciate it, but I don't think so. I told him I liked Ring Lardner and The Great Gatsby and all. I did, too. I was crazy about The Great Gatsby. Old Gatsby. Old sport. That killed me.

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

That's the whole trouble. You can't even find a place that's nice and peaceful, because there isn't any. You may think there is, but once you get there, when you're not looking, somebody'll sneak up and write "Fuck you" right under your nose.

Los que de verdad me vuelven loco son esos libros que cuando acabas de leerlos piensas que ojalá el autor fuera amigo tuyo y pudieras llamarle por teléfono cuando quisieras.

It didn't exactly depress me to think about it, but it didn't make me feel gay as hell either. Certain things should stay the way they are. You ought to be able to stick them in those big glass cases and just leave them alone. I know that's impossible, but its too bad anyways.

The best thing, though, in that museum was that everything always stayed right where it was… The only thing that would be different would be you.

I like to be somewhere at least where you can see a few girls around once in a while, even if they're only scratching their arms or blowing their noses or even just giggling or something.

if somebody at least listens it not too bad

I don't like any shows very much, if you want to know the truth. They're not as bad as movies, but they're certainly nothing to rave about. In the first place, 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 it's not in a way that's fun to watch. And if the actor's really good, you can always tell he knows he's good, and that spoils it.

I'm just going through a phase right now. Everybody goes through phases and all, don't they?

I'm not trying to tell you," he said "that only educated men are able to contribute something valuable to the world. It's not so.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.

إنّ الكتب التي تُثيرُ إهتمامي بالفعل هي تلك التي عندما أنتهي من قراءتها أرغب في أن يكون المؤلف صديقاً عزيزاً لي وأستطيع أنّ أخابره بالتليفون في أي وقت شئت .

It's 'If a body meet a body coming through the rye'!" old Phoebe said. "It's a poem. By Robert Burns.""I know it's a poem by Robert Burns."She was right, though. It is "If a body meet a body coming through the rye." I didn't know it then, though."I thought it was 'If a body catch a body,'" I said. "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'd 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. I know it's crazy.

I've read this same sentence about twenty times since you came in.

He once told Allie and I that if he'd had to shoot anybody, he wouldn't've known which direction to shoot in. He said the Army was practically as full of bastards as the Nazis were.

You keep 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. It’s a beautiful reciprocal arrangement. And it isn’t education, it’s history.

It's funny. You take adults, they look lousy when they're asleep and they have their mouths way open, but kids don't. Kids look alright. They can even have spit all over the pillow and they still look alright.

I'm always saying 'Glad to've met you' to somebody I'm not at all glad I met.

She gave me a pain in the ass, but she was very good looking.

I got up and went over and looked out the window. I felt so lonesome, all of a sudden. I almost wished I was dead.

The thing is, it's really hard to be roommates with people if your suitcases are much better than theirs - if yours are really good ones and theirs aren't. You think if they're intelligent and all, the other person, and have a good sense of humor, that they don't give a damn whose suitcases are better, but they do.

That digression business got on my nerves. I don't now. The trouble with me is, I like it when somebody digresses. It's more interesting and all. ...lots of time you don't know what interests you most till you start talking about something that doesn't interest you most. ...I like it when somebody gets excited about something.

Then I’d throw my automatic down the elevator shaft-after I’d wiped off all the fingerprints and all. Then I’d crawl back up to my room and call up Jane and have her come over and bandage up my guts. I pictured her holding a cigarette for me to smoke while I was bleeding and all. The goddam movies. They can ruin you. I’m not kidding.

His date kept saying to him, "How horrible . . . Don't, darling. Please, don't. Not here." Imagine giving somebody a feel and telling them about a guy committing suicide at the same time! They killed me.