What I was really hanging around for, I was trying to feel some kind of a good-by.  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-by or a bad good-by, but when I leave a place I like to know I'm leaving it.  If you don't, you feel even worse. 

-- Holden Caulfield, Catcher in the Rye              

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.    -- H.C.

"Do you know when a girl is really a terrific dancer? Well, where I have my hand on our back. If I think there isn't anything underneath my hand-no can, no legs, no feet, no anything - then the girl's really a terrific dancer."  -- H.C.

"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 those things, it takes you quite a while to find out whether they're really stupid or not."  -- H.C.

All morons hate it when you call them a moron.   -- H.C.

Catholics are always trying to find out if you're Catholic.   -- H.C.

I was half in love with her by the time we sat down.  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 half 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.    -- H.C.

"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 deer’s would still be drinking out of that water hole, with their pretty antlers and their pretty, skinny legs, and that squaw with the naked bosom would still be weaving that same blanket. Nobody'd 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 terrible fight in the bathroom. Or you'd just passed by one if those puddles in the street with gasoline 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."  -- H.C.

"A lot of schools were home for vacation already, and there were about a million girls sitting and standing around waiting for their dates to show up. 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 b*tches if you knew them. It was really nice sightseeing, if you know what I mean. In a way, it was 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 G*ddam 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 calling certain guy’s bores. I don't understand boring guys. I really don't.  -- H.C.

"I kept walking and walking up Fifth Avenue, without any tie on or anything. Then all of a sudden, something very spooky started happening. Every time I came to the end of a block and stepped off the goddam curb, I had this feeling that I'd never get to the other side of the street. I thought I'd just go down, down, down, and nobody'd ever see me again."  -- H.C.

"Almost every time somebody gives me a present, it ends up making me sad ."   -- H.C.

"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."  -- H.C.

"[She asked if she was late] I told her no, but she was around ten minutes late, as a matter of fact. I didn't give a damn, though. All that crap they have in cartoons in the Saturday Evening Post and all, showing guys on street corners looking sore a s hell because their dates are late-that's bunk. If a girl looks swell when she meets you, who gives a damn if she's late? Nobody."  -- H.C.

"I don't want to scare you, but I can very well clearly see you dying nobly, one way or another, for some highly unworthy cause." -- Mr. Antolini      

"The mark of an 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." -- Mr. Antolini                       

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

Home

Holden Caulfield, Catcher in the Rye, holden, caulfield, catcher, rye, mr, antolini, jd, salindger, salinger, book, classic, movie, high school, hardcover, softcover, soft, hard, cover, books