THE CATCHER IN THE RYE - J.D. SALINGER

The Catcher in the Rye - Pg 204

  That's the whole trouble. You can't ever 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. Try it sometime. 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. 

The Catcher in the Rye - Pg 202

  I went down by a different staircase, and I saw another "Fuck you" on the wall. I tried to rub it off with my hand again, but this one was scratched on, with a knife or something. It wouldn't come off. It's hopeless, anyway. 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. 

The Catcher in the Rye - Pg 198

  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. They'd let me put gas and oil in their stupid cars, and they'd pay me a salary and all for it, and I'd build me a little cabin somewhere with the dough I made and live there for the rest of my life. I'd build it right near the woods, but not right in them, because I'd want it to be sunny as hell all the time. I'd cook all my own food, and later on, if I wanted to get married or something, I'd meet this beautiful girl that was also a deaf-mute and we'd get married. She'd come and live in my cabin with me, and if she wanted to say anything to me, she'd have to write it on a goddam piece of paper, like everybody else. If we had any children, we'd hide them somewhere. We could buy them a lot of books and teach them how to read and write by ourselves. 

The Catcher in the Rye - Pg 188

  "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."

The Catcher in the Rye - Pg 184

  What I mean is, lots of time you don't know what interest you most till you start talking about something that doesn't interest you most. I mean you can't help it sometimes. 

The Catcher in the Rye - Pg 171

  "You can't even think of one thing."  "Yes, I can. Yes, I can."  "Well, do it, then."  "I like Allie," I said. "And I like doing what I'm doing right now. Sitting here with you, and talking, and thinking about stuff, and--"  "Allie's dead--You always say that! If somebody's dead and everything, and in Heaven, then it isn't really--"  "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."

The Catcher in the Rye - Pg 121

  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... 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 on 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. 

The Catcher in the Rye - Pg 120

  Nobody gave too much of a damn about old Columbus, but you always had a lot of candy and gum and stuff with you, and the inside of that auditorium had such a nice smell. It always smelled like it was raining outside, even if it wasn't, and you were in the only nice, dry, cosy place in the world. I loved that damn museum. 

The Catcher in the Rye - Pg 115

  The kid was swell. he was walking in the street, instead of on the sidewalk, but right next to the curb. he was making out like he was walking a very straight line, the way kids do, and the whole time he kept singing and humming. I got up closer so I could hear what he was singing. he was singing that song, "If a body catch a body coming through the rye." He had a pretty little voice, too. He was just singing for the hell of it, you could tell. The cars zoomed by, brakes screeched all over the place, his parents paid no attention to him, and he kept on walking next to the curb and singing "If a body catch a body coming through the rye." It made me feel better. It made me feel not so depressed any more. 

The Catcher in the Rye - Pg 81

  New York's terrible when somebody laughs on the street very late at night. You can hear it for miles. It makes you feel so lonesome and depressed. 

The Catcher in the Rye - Pg 73

  She knocked me out. I mean it. 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, eve 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. 

The Catcher in the Rye - Pg 71

  "I said do you know when a girl's really a terrific dancer?"  "Uh-uh."  "Well--where I have my hand on your 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.  She wasn't listening, though. So I ignored her for a while. We just danced. God, could that dopey girl dance. 

The Catcher in the Rye - Pg 62

   In my mind, I'm probably the biggest sex maniac you ever saw. Sometimes I can think of very crumby stuff I wouldn't mind doing if the opportunity came up. I can even see how it might be quite a lot of fun, in a crumby way, and if you were both sort of drunk and all, to get a girl and squirt water or something all over each other's face. The thing is, though, I don't like the idea. It stinks, if you analyze it. I think if you don't really like a girl, you shouldn't horse around with her at all, and if you do life her, then you're supposed to like her face, and if you like her face, you ought to be careful about doing crumby stuff to it, like squirting water all over it.

The Catcher in the Rye - Pg 54

   She stuck the bag right out in the middle of the aisle, where the conductor and everybody could trip over it. She had these orchids on, like she'd just been to a big party or something. She was around forty or forty0five, I guess, but she was very good-looking. Women kill me. They really do. I don't mean I'm oversexed or anything like that--although I am quite sexy. I just like them, I mean. They're always leaving their goddam bags out in the middle of the aisle. 

The Catcher in the Rye - Pg 52

  When I was all set to go, when I had my bags and all, I stood for a while next to the stairs and took a last look down the goddam corridor. I was sort of crying. I don't know why. I put my red hunting hat on, and turned the peak around to the back, the way I liked it, and then I yelled at the top of my goddam voice, "Sleep tight, ya morons!"

The Catcher in the Rye - Pg 39

  I slept in the garage the night he died, and I broke all the goddam windows with my fist, just for the hell of it. I even tried to break all the windows on the station wagon we had that summer, but my hand was already broken and everything by that time, and I couldn't do it. It was a very stupid thing to do, I'll admit, but I hardly didn't even know I was doing it, and you didn't know Allie. 

The Catcher in the Rye - Pg 29

  "I'm the goddam Governor's son," I said. I was knocking myself out. Tap-dancing all over the place. "De doesn't want me to be a tap dancer. He wants me to go to Oxford. But it's in my blood, tap-dancing."

The Catcher in the Rye - Pg 18

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. 

The Catcher in the Rye - Pg 8

He started going into this nodding routine. You never saw anybody nod as much in your life as old Spencer did. You never knew if he was nodding a lot because he was thinking and all, or just because he was a nice old guy that didn't know his ass from his elbow.