«'Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around - nobody big, I mean - except me. And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff - I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I'd do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all.»

«Among other things, you'll find that you're not the first person who was ever confused and frightened and even sickened by human behaviour. You're by no means alone on that score, you'll be excited and stimulated to know. Many, many men have been just as troubled morally and spiritually as you are right now. Happily, some of them kept records of their troubles. You'll learn from them—if you want to. Just as some day, 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.»

«All morons hate it when you call them a moron.»

«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 am a kind of paranoiac in reverse. I suspect people of plotting to make me happy.»

«What I was really hanging around for, I was trying to feel some kind of a good-by. I mean I've left schools and places I didn't even know I was leaving them. I hate that. 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.»

«How do you know your going to do something, untill you do it?»

«Why the hell don'tcha, instead of keep saying it?»

«I'm sick of not having the courage to be an absolute nobody.»

«'I'm just going through a phase right now. Everybody goes through phases and all, don't they?»