Catcher in the Rye Quotes

This fall I think you’re riding for – it’s a special kind of fall, a horrible kind. The man falling isn’t permitted to feel or hear himself hit bottom. He just keeps falling and falling. The whole arrangement’s designed for men who, at some time or other in their lives, were looking for something their own environment couldn’t supply them with. Or they thought their own environment couldn’t supply them with. So they gave up looking. They gave it up before they ever really even got started.

– J. D. Salinger

The Catcher in the Rye. Mr. Antolini in Chapter 24. Mr. Antolini describes Holden as heading for a psychological breakdown, a kind of free fall where he will never reach the bottom. Where he will be disconnected from his environment, having searched for something there that he failed to find, and so ends up giving up.

I have a feeling that you’re riding for some kind of a terrible, terrible fall. But I don’t honestly know what kind…. 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 might have 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.

– J. D. Salinger

The Catcher in the Rye. Mr. Antolini in Chapter 24. Holden has sought out Mr. Antolini, a former teacher, to talk to. He has flunked out of school and is searching for direction. Mr. Antolini warns Holden that he is heading for a terrible fall.

Then I took my hunting hat out of my coat pocket and gave it to her. She likes those kind of crazy hats. She didn’t want to take it, but I made her. I’ll bet she slept with it on. She really likes those kind of hats.

– J. D. Salinger

The Catcher in the Rye. Chapter 23. Holden gives Phoebe his prized hunting hat, the symbol of his uniqueness and innocence and desire to be separate from everybody else. Having spent some time with the one person he really connects with, his sacrifice of the hat is a sign of his recognition that he does have ties and relationships are important to him.
That's all I do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all - J. D. Salinger quote In Kids

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 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.

– J. D. Salinger

The Catcher in the Rye. Holden Caulfield in Chapter 22. The most famous passage in Salinger’s novel, which gives it its title. It speaks of Holden’s wish and his fantasy to be the rescuer of all the children who might suffer in their lives.

When the light was on and all, I sort of looked at her for a while. She was laying there asleep, with her face sort of on the side of the pillow. She had her mouth way open. It’s funny. You take adults, they look lousy when they’re asleep and they have their mouths way open, but kids don’t. Kids look all right. They can even have spit all over the pillow and they still look all right.

– J. D. Salinger

The Catcher in the Rye. Chapter 21, when Holden sneaks back into the family home to visit his sister Phoebe. She looks funny to Holden sleeping with her mouth open, whereas adults in that position look “lousy.” Phoebe represents the innocence of all children to Holden.

While I was sitting down, I saw something that drove me crazy. Somebody’d written “Fuck you” on the wall. It drove me damn near crazy. I thought how Phoebe and all the other little kids would see it, and how they’d wonder what the hell it meant, and then finally some dirty kid would tell them – all cockeyed, naturally – what it meant, and how they’d all think about it and maybe even worry about it for a couple of days. I kept wanting to kill whoever’d written it. I figured it was some perverty bum that’d sneaked in the school late at night to take a leak or something and then wrote it on the wall. I kept picturing myself catching him at it, and how I’d smash his head on the stone steps till he was good and goddam dead and bloody. But I knew, too, I wouldn’t have the guts to do it. I knew that. That made me even more depressed.

– J. D. Salinger

The Catcher in the Rye. Chapter 25. Holden has a tough time understanding that everyone has to grow up. He does not want children to grow up because he feels that adults are corrupt. Here he tries to take away bad words from the walls of an elementary school where his sister Phoebe attended.

All the kids kept trying to grab for the gold ring, and so was old Phoebe, and I was sort of afraid she’d fall off the goddam horse, but I didn’t say anything or do anything. The thing with kids is, if they want to grab for the gold ring, you have to let them do it, and not say anything. If they fall off, they fall off, but it’s bad if you say anything to them.

– J. D. Salinger

The Catcher in the Rye. Holden in Chapter 25. The gold ring on the carousel in a symbol of the worldly success most of us try to reach for. Holden is saying here that you have let children make their own mistakes and not try to correct them. He has previously said that he wants to be a catcher in the rye, protecting little kids from harm. He now realizes that it is a futile job.

“I said I’m not going back to school. You can do what you want to do, but I’m not going back to school,” she said. “So shut up.” It was the first time she ever told me to shut up. It sounded terrible. God, it sounded terrible.

– J. D. Salinger

The Catcher in the Rye. Chapter 25, Phoebe utters these defiant words to Holden as he refuses to let her leave town with him. He is upset that he has pushed Phoebe to the point of telling him to shut up, a form of profanity. Children’s innocence should be protected, he believes, and he has failed to do this with Phoebe, which troubles him greatly.

That’s the whole trouble. You can’t ever find a place that’s nice and peaceful, because there isn’t any. You may think there is, but once you get there, when you’re not looking, somebody’ll sneak up and write ‘F*** you’ right under your nose. I think, even, if I ever die, and they stick me in a cemetery, and I have a tombstone and all, it’ll say ‘Holden Caulfield’ on it, and then what year I was born and what year I died, and then right under that it’ll say ‘F*** you.’ I’m positive, in fact.

– J. D. Salinger

The Catcher in the Rye. Chapter 25, Holden is at rock bottom. At Phoebe’s school he sees ‘F*** you’ written in two places, and at the museum sees the profanity written for a third time. The quote speaks to Holden’s quest to save innocence and make the world a more attractive place. He realizes with a sadness he does not fully understand that he cannot find a place of innocence in an imperfect world.
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