The Catcher in the Rye Quotes

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The Catcher in the Rye Quotes

• Wikiquote: The Catcher in the Rye
  • "If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth." -Holden Caulfield's Opening Statement

• • "Look, sir. Don't worry about me," I said. "I mean it. I'll be all right. I'm just going through a phase right now. Everybody goes through phases and all, don't they?" -Ch 2

• • "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." -Ch 3

• • "Certain things they should stay the way they are. You ought to be able to stick them in one of those big glass cases and just leave them alone. I know that's impossible, but it's too bad anyway." -Ch 16

• • "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. I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be. I know it's crazy." -Ch 22

• The Quote Garden: Catcher in the Rye Quotes
  • "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." -Ch 1

• • "I don't even know what I was running for - I guess I just felt like it." -Ch 1

• • "All morons hate it when you call them a moron." -Ch 6

• SparkNotes: The Catcher in the Rye: Important Quotes Explained
  • “Life is a game, boy. Life is a game that one plays according to the rules.”
  • “Yes, sir. I know it is. I know it.”
  • "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." -Ch 2

• • "The best thing, though, in that museum was that everything always stayed right where it was. Nobody’d move. . . . Nobody’d be different. The only thing that would be different would be you." -Ch 16

• NovelGuide: Top Ten Quotes from The Catcher in the Rye
  • "Almost every time somebody gives me a present, it ends up making me sad." -Holden

• • "I’m always saying ‘Glad to’ve met you’ to someone I’m not at all glad I met. If you want to stay alive, you have to say that stuff, though." -Holden, Ch 12

• • "I felt like jumping out the window. I probably would’ve, too, if I’d been sure somebody’d cover me up as soon as I landed. I didn’t want a bunch of stupid rubbernecks looking at me when I was all gory." -Holden, Ch 14

• Generation Terrorists: The Catcher in the Rye Quotes
  • "Anyway it was the Saturday of the football game with Saxxon Hall. The game with Saxxon hall was supposed to be a very big deal around Pencey. It was the last game of the year, and you were supposed to commit suicide or something if Old Pencey didn't win."

• • "Pencey was full of crooks. Quite a few guys came from these wealthy families, but it was full of crooks anyway. The more expensive a school is, the more crooks it has - I'm not kidding."

• • "People never believe you."

• Savvy Outlook: Quotes from The Catcher in the Rye
  • "Grand. There's a word I really hate. It's phony. I could puke every time I hear it."

• • "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."

• • "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."

• All Great Quotes: The Catcher in the Rye  
  • "It was that kind of a crazy afternoon, terrifically cold, and no sun out or anything, and you felt like you were disappearing every time you crossed a road." -Ch 1

• • "People always think something's all true." -Ch 2

• • "People never notice anything." -Ch 2