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There's no more to Holden Caulfield. Read the book again. It's all there. Holden Caulfield is only a frozen moment in time.

— J. D. Salinger

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Source and credibility

Wikiquote does not flag this quote as disputed or misattributed.

Source: On the main character in his novel The Catcher in the Rye, as quoted in Asks Appeals Court to Uphold Ban on ‘Catcher’ Sequel" in The New York Times (14 August 2009)
Source quality: Secondhand citation Quoted from another book or article rather than from the original.

More by J. D. Salinger

The true poet has no choice of material. The material plainly chooses him, not he it.

Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction (1963)

I'm known as a strange, aloof kind of man. But all I'm doing is trying to protect myself and my work.

Jesus realized there is no separation from God.

Franny and Zooey (1961)

The human voice conspires to desecrate everything on Earth.

Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction (1963)

There is a marvelous peace in not publishing.

I don't really deeply feel that anyone needs an airtight reason for quoting from the works of writers he loves, but it's always nice, I'll grant you, if he has one.

Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction (1963)

Life is a gift horse in my opinion.

Nine Stories (1953)

How terrible it is when you say I love you and the person on the other end shouts back "What?"

Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction (1963)

All J. D. Salinger quotes →

Topics

Time

More quotes by J. D. Salinger

She wasn't doing a thing that I could see, except standing there leaning on the balcony railing, holding the universe together.

A Girl I Knew (1948)

The religious life, and all the agony that goes with it, is just something God sics on people who have the gall to accuse Him of having created an ugly world.

Franny and Zooey (1961)

How in hell are you going to recognize a legitimate holy man when you see one if you don't even know a cup of consecrated chicken soup when it's right in front of your nose?

Franny and Zooey (1961)

Poets are always taking the weather so personally. They're always sticking their emotions in things that have no emotions.

Teddy (1953)

Seymour once said that all we do our whole lives is go from one little piece of Holy Ground to the next.

Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction (1963)

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A generation which ignores history has no past —and no future.

Robert A. Heinlein Time Enough for Love (1973)

From now on, everything in life will appear blurry to me. What’s the point of wiping my glasses when my vision has already left me?"

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You can never plan the future by the past.

Edmund Burke A Letter to a Member of the National Assembly (1791)

Nothing is there to come, and nothing past,
But an eternal now does always last.

Abraham Cowley Poems (1656)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: J. D. Salinger (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.