J. D. Salinger Quotes About Writing

Quotes about: Writing

• An artist's only concern is to shoot for some kind of perfection, and on his own terms, not anyone else's.

  J. D. Salinger

  Art, Writing, Perfection

  j.d. salinger (1961). “franny and zooey”

• What really knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done reading 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. That doesn't happen much, though.

  J. D. Salinger

  Book, Reading, Memorable

  Catcher in the Rye (1951) ch. 3

• I don't suppose a writing man ever really gets rid of his old crocus-yellow neckties. Sooner or later, I think, they show up in his prose, and there isn't a hell of a lot he can do about it.

  J. D. Salinger

  Writing, Men, Thinking

  "Seymour: An Introduction (1959)". "Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction". Book by J. D. Salinger, 1963.

• Were most of your stars out? Were you busy writing your heart out?

  J. D. Salinger

  Stars, Writing, Heart

• Grand. There's a word I really hate. It's a phony. I could puke every time I hear it.

  J. D. Salinger

  Hate, Writing, Phony

  J. D. SALINGER (1951). “THE CATCHER IN THE RYE”

• Do you know what I was smiling at? You wrote down that you were a writer by profession. It sounded to me like the loveliest euphemism I had ever heard. When was writing ever your profession? It's never been anything but your religion.

  J. D. Salinger

  Writing, Heard, Euphemism

  "Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction". Book by J. D. Salinger, 1963.

• You can't argue with someone who believes, or just passionately suspects, that the poet's function is not to write what he must write but, rather, to write what he would write if his life depended on his taking responsibility for writing what he must in a style designed to shut out as few of his old librarians as humanly possible.

  J. D. Salinger

  Believe, Writing, Responsibility

• There is a marvelous peace in not publishing. It's peaceful. Still. Publishing is a terrible invasion of my privacy. I like to write. I live to write. But I write just for myself and my own pleasure. I don't necessarily intend to publish posthumously, but I do like to write for myself. I pay for this kind of attitude. I'm known as a strange, aloof kind of man. But all I'm doing is trying to protect myself and my work.

  J. D. Salinger

  Attitude, Writing, Men

  "Salinger: A Biography". Book by Paul Alexander, 2000.

• But if we come back, if German men come back, if British men come back, and Japs, and French, and all the other men, all of us talking, writing, painting, making movies of heroes, and cockroaches and foxholes and blood, then future generations will always be doomed to future Hitlers. It's never occurred to boys to have contempt for wars, to point to soldiers' pictures in history books, laughing at them. If German boys had learned to be contemptuous of violence, Hitler would have had to take up knitting to keep his ego warm.

  J. D. Salinger

  War, Book, Hero

• 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.

  J. D. Salinger

  Good Night, Stars, Writing

• If only you’d remember before ever you sit down to write that you’ve been a reader long before you were ever a writer. You simply fix that fact in your mind, then sit very still and ask yourself, as a reader, what piece of writing in all the world Buddy Glass would most want to read if he had his heart’s choice. The next step is terrible, but so simple I can hardly believe it as I write it. You just sit down shamelessly and write the thing yourself. I won’t even underline that. It’s too important to be underlined.

  J. D. Salinger

  Believe, Writing, Heart

• There is a marvelous peace in not publishing ... I like to write. I love to write. But I write just for myself and my own pleasure.

  J. D. Salinger

  Writing, Pleasure, Publishing

  J. D. Salinger (2016). “J. D. Salinger: The Last Interview: And Other Conversations”, p.29, Melville House

• I love to write and I assure you I write regularly... But I write for myself, for my own pleasure. And I want to be left alone to do it.

  J. D. Salinger

  Writing, Want, Pleasure

  J. D. Salinger (2016). “J. D. Salinger: The Last Interview: And Other Conversations”, p.77, Melville House

• You think of the book you'd most like to be reading, and then you sit down and shamelessly write it.

  J. D. Salinger

  Book, Reading, Writing

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