- “The thing is it’s really hard to be roomates with people if your suitcases are much better than theirs.”
- “Certain things they should stay the way they are”
- "If there's one thing I hate, it's the movies. Don't even mention them to me."
- "I act quite young for my age sometimes. I was sixteen then, and I'm seventeen now, and sometimes I act like I'm about thirteen. It's really ironical, because I'm six foot two and a half and I have grey hair. I really do. "
- "Grand. There's a word I really hate. It's phony. I could puke every time I hear it."
- "Life is a game, boy. Life is a game that one plays according to the 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."
- "I'm the most terrific liar you ever saw in your life. It's awful. If I'm on my way to the store to buy a magazine, even, and somebody asks me where I'm going, I'm liable to say I'm going to the opera. It's terrible."
- "I don't know 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."
- "After they left, I started getting sorry that I'd only given them ten bucks for their collection. But the thing was, I'd made that date to go to a matinee with old Sally Hayes, and I needed to keep some dough for the tickets and stuff. I was sorry anyway,though. Goddam money. It always ends up making you blue as hell."
- "I'm not going to join a monastery anyway. The kind of luck I have, I'd probably join one with all the wrong kind of monks in it. All stupid bastards. Or just bastards."
- "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 want them to clap for me. People always clap for the wrong things. If I were a piano player, I'd play it in the goddam closet."
- "In the first place, I'm sort of an atheist. I like Jesus and all, but I don't care too much for most of the other stuff in the Bible. Take the Disciples, for instance. They annoy the hell out of me, if you want to know the truth."
- "Then, just to show you how crazy I am, when we were coming out of this big clinch, I told her I loved her and all. It was a lie,of course, but the thing is, I meant it when I said it. I'm crazy. I swear to god I am."
- "It's funny. All you have to do is say something nobody understands and they'll do practically anything you want them to."
- "It may be the kind where, at the age of thirty, you sit in some bar hating everybody who comes in looking as if he migh thave played football in college. Then again, you may pick up just enough education to hate people who say, 'It's a secret between he and I.' Or you may end up in some business office,throwing paper clips at the nearest stenographer. I just don't know. But do you know what I'm driving at, at all?" - Mr. Antolini to Holden
- "Yes. Sure," I said. I did, too. "But you're wrong about the hating business. I mean about hating football players and all.You really are. I don't hate too many guys. What I may do, Imay hate them for a little while, like this guy Stradlater I knew at Pencey, and this other boy, Robert Ackley. I hated them once in a while -- I admit it -- but it doesn't last too long, is what I mean. After a while, if I didn't see them, if they didn't come in the room, or if I didn't see them in the dining room fora couple of meals, I sort of missed them. I mean I sort of missed them." - Holden to Mr. Antolini
- "I think that one of these days," he said, "you're going to haveto find out where you want to go. And then you've got to startgoing there. But immediately. You can't afford to lose aminute. Not you."- Mr. Antolini to Holden
- "It's funny. Don't ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody."