Literarische Essenzen

Nr. 11

The Catcher in the Rye
(J.D. Salinger)

I liked her. She had a big nose and her nails were all bitten down and bleedy-looking and she had on those damn falsies that point all over the place, but you felt sort of sorry for her.

The more expensive a school is, the more crooks it has-I'm not kidding.

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.

Anyway, as soon as I got my breath back I ran across Route 204. It was icy as hell and I damn near fell down. I don't even know what I was running for – I guess I just felt like it.

I don't much like to see old guys in their pajamas and bathrobes anyway. Their bumpy old chests are always showing. And their legs. Old guys' legs, at beaches and places, always look so white and unhairy.

“Life is a game, boy. Life is a game that one plays according to rules.” … Game, my ass. Some game. If you get on the side where all the hot-shots are, then it's a game, all right – I'll admit that. but if you get on the other side, where there aren't any hot-shots, then what's a game about it? Nothing. No game.

It's partly true, too, but it isn't all true. People always think something's all true.

He read it anyway though. You can't stop a teacher if they want to do something. They just do it.

What really knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done reading with 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.

He always brought out the old sadist in me. I was pretty sadistic with him quite often.

He went out of the room with his toilet kit and towel under his arm. No shirt or anything. He always walked around in his bare torso because he thought he had a damn good build. He did, too. I have to admit it.

Stradlater was more of a secret slob. He always looked all right, Stradlater, but for instance, you should've seen the razor he shaved himself with. It was always rusty as hell and full of lather and hairs and crap.

I mean, he was mostly a Year Book kind of handsome guy. I knew a lot of guys at Pencey I thought were a lot handsomer than Stradlater, but they wouldn't look handsome of you saw their picture in the Year Book.

You take a very handsome guy, or a guy that thinks he's a real hot-shot, and they're always asking you to do them a big favor. Just because they're crazy about themselves, they think you're crazy about them, too, and that you're just dying to do them a favor.

He wanted you to think that the only reason he was lousy at writing compositions was because he stuck all the commas in the wrong place.

What a technique that guy had. What he'd do was, he'd start snowing his date in this very quiet, sincere voice – like as if he wasn't only a very handsome guy but a nice, sincere guy, too. I damn near puked, listening to him. His date kept saying, “No – please. Please don't. Please.” But Stradlater kept snowing her in this Abraham Lincoln, sincere voice, and finally there'd been this terrific silence in the back of the car.

Sex 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.

… I have my hand on your back. If I think there isn't anything underneath my hand – no can, no legs, not feet, no anything – then the girls really a terrific dancer.

Most girls if you hold hands with them, their goddam hand dies on you, or else they think they have to keep moving their hand all the time, as if they were afraid they'd bore you or something.

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.

I swear to God, if I were a piano player or an actor or something and all those dopes thought I was terrific, I'd hate it. I wouldn't even want them to clap for me. People always clap for the wrong things.

The Navy guy and I told each other we were glad to've met each other. Which always kills me. I'm always saying “Glad to've met you” to somebody I'm not at all glad I met. If you want to stay alive, you have to say that stuff, though.

I mean most girls are so dump and all. After you neck them for a while, you can really watch them losing their brains. You take a girl when she really gets passionate, she just hasn't any brains. I don't know. They tell me to stop, so I stop. I always wish I hadn't, after I take them home, but I keep doing it anyway.

If you want to know the truth, I can't even stand ministers. …they all have these Holy Joe voices when they start giving their sermons. God, I hate that. I don't see why the hell they can't talk in their natural voice. They sound so phony when they talk.

My big trouble is, I always sort of think whoever I'm necking is a pretty intelligent person. It hasn't got a goddam thing to do with it, but I keep thinking it anyway.

The thing is, it's really hard to be roommates with people if your suitcases are much better than theirs – if yours are really good ones and theirs aren't. You think if they're intelligent and all, the other person, and have a good sense of humor, that they don't give a damn whose suitcases are better, but they do. They really do.

He was enjoying the conversation about tennis and all, but you could tell he would've enjoyed it more if I was a Catholic and all.

My aunt is pretty charitable – she does a lot of Red Cross work and all – but she's very well-dressed and all, and when she does anything charitable she's always very well-dressed and has lipstick on and all that crap. I couldn't picture her doing anything for charity if she had to wear black clothes and no lipstick while she was doing it.

I can understand somebody going to the movies because there's nothing else to do, but when somebody really wants to go, and even walks fast so as to get there quicker, then it depresses hell out of me.

I figured I'd give old Jane a buzz and see if she was home for vacation yet. … But I didn't feel like it. You really have to be in the mood for that stuff.

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… It was really nice sightseeing, if you know what I mean. In a way, it was sort of 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.

…So I don't about bores. Maybe you shouldn't feel too sorry if you see some swell girl getting married to them. They don't hurt anybody, most of them, and maybe they're secretly all terrific whistlers or something. Who the hell knows? Not me.

If a girl looks swell when she meets you, who gives a damn if she's late? Nobody.

The trouble with girls is, if they like a boy, no matter how big a bastard he is, they'll say he has an inferiority complex, and if they don't like him, no matter how nice a guy he is, or how big an inferiority complex he has, they'll say he's conceited. Even smart girls do it.

She was about as kindhearted as a goddam wolf. You take somebody that cries their goddam eyes out over phony stuff in the movies, and nine times out of ten they're mean bastards at heat. I'm not kidding.

That's the trouble with these intelligent guys. They never want to discuss anything serious unless they feel like it.

When we were at Whooton, he'd make you describe the most personal stuff that happened to you, but if you started asking him questions about himself, he got sore. These intellectual guys don't like to have an intellectual conversation with you unless they're running the whole thing. They always want you to shut up when they shut up, and go back to your room when they go back to their room.

…my parents go out quite frequently and stick a bunch of flowers on old Allie's grave. …It rained on his lousy tombstone, and it rained on the grass on his stomach…All the visitors could get in their cars and turn on their radios and all and then go someplace nice for dinner – everybody except Allie.

It's funny. All you have to do is say something nobody understands and they'll do practically do anything you want them to.

I certainly knew I was home, though. Our foyer has a funny smell that doesn't smell like anyplace else…. I don't know what the hell it is – but you always know you're home.

Old Phoebe didn't say anything. When she can't think of anything to say, she doesn't say a goddam word.

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

People are mostly hot to have a discussion when you're not.

"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."

"…someday, if you have something to offer, someone will learn something from you. It's a beautiful reciprocal arrangement. And it isn't education. It's history. It's poetry."

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 conversation with anybody.

I'd have this rule that nobody could do anything phony when they visited me. If anybody tried to do anything phony, they couldn't stay.

I didn't put my hands on her shoulders again or anything because if I had she really would've beat it on me. Kids are funny. You have to watch what you're doing.

A lot of people, especially this one psychoanalyst guy they have here, keeps asking me if I'm going to apply myself when I go back to school next September. It's such a stupid question, in my opinion. I mean how do you know what you're going to do till you do it? The answer is, you don't. I think I am, but how do I know? I swear it's a stupid question.