When I really worry about something, I donโt just fool around. I even have to go to the bathroom when I worry about something. Only, I donโt go. Iโm too worried to go. I donโt want to interrupt my worrying to go.
J. D. SalingerSometimes 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.
J. D. SalingerIf you're going to say the Jesus Prayer, at least say it to Jesus, and not to St. Francis and Seymour and Heidi's grandfather all wrapped up in one.
J. D. SalingerBut if we come back, if German men come back, if British men come back, and Japs, and French, and all the other men, all of us talking, writing, painting, making movies of heroes, and cockroaches and foxholes and blood, then future generations will always be doomed to future Hitlers. It's never occurred to boys to have contempt for wars, to point to soldiers' pictures in history books, laughing at them. If German boys had learned to be contemptuous of violence, Hitler would have had to take up knitting to keep his ego warm.
J. D. SalingerI feel overwhelmingly grateful to them, but I don't know what to do with their invisible gifts.
J. D. SalingerSex is something I really don't understand too hot. You never know where the hell you are. I keep making up these sex rules for myself, and then I break them right away. Last year I made a rule that I was going to quit horsing around with girls that, deep down, gave me a pain in the ass. I broke it, though, the same week I made it - the same night, as a matter of fact.
J. D. Salinger