Keep me up till five because all your stars are out, and for no other reason…Oh dare to do it Buddy! Trust your heart. You’re a deserving craftsman. It would never betray you. Good night. I’m feeling very much over-excited now, and a little dramatic, but I think I’d give almost anything on earth to see you writing a something, an anything, a poem, a tree, that was really and truly after your own heart.

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.

Most stuff that is genuine is better left unsaid.

Why's it so sunny?" she repeated. Zooey observed her rather narrowly. "I bring the sun wherever I go, buddy," he said.

You take a really sleepy man, Esmé, and he always stands a chance of again becoming a man with all his fac — with all his f-a-c-u-l-t-i-e-s intact.

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.

In my mind, I'm probably the biggest sex maniac you ever saw.