J. D. Salinger (1919–2010,) fully Jerome David Salinger, was an American novelist and short-story writer.
Born in Manhattan, New York City, Salinger served as an infantryman in World War II and started writing for The New Yorker. His novel The Catcher in the Rye (1951) won critical acclaim and many keen admirers, especially among the post-World War II generation of disillusioned youth. This narrative of a tortured teenager is recounted in modern speech—its symbolism, idiomatic style, and thoughtful, sympathetic insights inspired a new generation of American writers.
Salinger’s other noteworthy works are the collections of short stories Glasses: Nine Stories (1953,) Franny and Zooey (1961,) Raise High the Roof Beam (1963,) and Carpenters and Seymour (1963.)
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by J. D. Salinger
Boy, when you’re dead, they really fix you up. I hope to hell when I do die somebody has sense enough to just dump me in the river or something. Anything except sticking me in a goddam cemetery. People coming and putting a bunch of flowers on your stomach on Sunday, and all that crap. Who wants flowers when you’re dead? Nobody.
—J. D. Salinger
Topics: Death
I was six when I saw that everything was God, and my hair stood up, and all, Teddy said. It was on a Sunday, I remember. My sister was a tiny child then, and she was drinking her milk, and all of a sudden I saw that she was God and the milk was God. I mean, all she was doing was pouring God into God, if you know what I mean.
—J. D. Salinger
Topics: God
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.
—J. D. Salinger
Topics: Love
I am a kind of paranoiac in reverse. I suspect people of plotting to make me happy.
—J. D. Salinger
Topics: Happiness
If a girl looks swell when she meets you, who gives a damn if she’s late? Nobody.
—J. D. Salinger
Topics: Women
People always think something’s all true.
—J. D. Salinger
Topics: Truth
Mothers are all slightly insane.
—J. D. Salinger
Girls. You never know what they’re going to think.
—J. D. Salinger
The fact is always obvious much too late, but the most singular difference between happiness and joy is that happiness is a solid and joy a liquid.
—J. D. Salinger
Topics: Happiness
When I really worry about something, I don’t just fool around. I even have to go to the bathroom when I worry about something. Only, I don’t go. I’m too worried to go. I don’t want to interrupt my worrying to go.
—J. D. Salinger
Topics: Worry
You don’t have to think too hard when you talk to teachers.
—J. D. Salinger
Topics: Education
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