Franny and Zooey Quotes

“Did you know, God damn it, that Les was all for bringing a tangerine in to you last night before he went to bed? My God. Even Bessie can't stand stories with tangerines in them. And God knows I can't. If you're going to go on with this breakdown business, I wish to hell you'd go back to college to have it. Where you're not the baby of the family. And where, God knows, nobody'll have any urges to bring you any tangerines. And where you don't keep your goddam tap shoes in the closet.”
― J.D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey

“Lane himself lit a cigarette as the train pulled in. Then, like so many people, who, perhaps, ought to be issued only a very probational pass to meet trains, he tried to empty his face of all expression that might quite simply, perhaps even beautifully, reveal how he felt about the arriving person.
Franny was among the first of the girls to get off the train, from a car at the far, northern end of the platform. Lane spotted her immediately, and despite whatever it was he was trying to do with his face, his arm that shot up into the air was the whole truth.”
― J.D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey

“There isn't anyone anywhere who isn't Seymour's Fat Lady. Don't you know that? Don't you know that goddam secret yet? And don't you know — listen to me, now — don't you know who that Fat Lady really is? . . . Ah, buddy. Ah, buddy. It's Christ Himself. Christ Himself, buddy.”
― J.D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey

“I mean not try to analyze everything to death for once, if possible, especially me.”
― J.D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey

“It isn't just Wally. It could be a girl, for goodness' sake. I mean if he were a girl - somebody in my dorm, for example, - he'd have been painting scenery in some stock company all summer. Or bicycled through wales. Or taken an apartment in New York and worked for a magazine or an advertising company. It's everybody, I mean. Everything everybody does is so - I don't know, not wrong, or even mean, or even stupid, necessarily. But just so tiny and meaningless and - sad-making.

And the worst part is, if you go bohemian or something crazy like that, you're conforming just as much as everybody else, only in a different way.”
― J.D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey

“It was just terrible! And the worst part was, I knew what a bore I was being, I knew how I was depressing people, or even hurting their feelings- but I just couldn't stop! I just could not stop picking!”
― J.D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey

“If you're going to say the Jesus Prayer, at least say it to Jesus, and not to St. Francis and Seymour and Heidi's grandfather all wrapped up in one.”
― J.D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey

“If you're going to go to war against the System, just do your shooting like a nice, intelligent girl ㅡ because the enemy's there, and not because you don't like his hairdo or his goddamn necktie.”
― J.D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey

“His eldest sister (who modestly prefers to be identified here as a Tuckahoe homemaker) has asked me to describe him as looking like 'the blue-eyed Jewish-Irish Mohican scout who died in your arms at the roulette table at Monte Carlo.”
― J.D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey

“And you make people nervous, young man," she said - most equably, for her. "You either take to somebody or you don't. If you do, then you do all the talking and nobody can even get a word in edgewise. If you don't like somebody - which is most of the time - then you just sit around like death itself and let the person talk themself into a hole. I've seen you do it.”
― J.D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey

“I've missed you." The words were no sooner out than she realized that she didn't mean them at all.”
― J.D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey

“You’d better get busy, though, buddy. The goddamn sands run out on you every time you turn around. I know what I’m talking about. You’re lucky if you get time to sneeze in this goddamn phenomenal world.”
― J.D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey

“The Great Gatsby' [...] was my 'Tom Sawyer' when I was twelve [....]”
― J.D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey

“As a matter of simple logic, there's no difference at all, that I can see, between the man who's greedy for material treasure —or even intellectual treasure — and the man who's greedy for spiritual treasure. As you say, treasure's treasure, God damn it, and it seems to me that ninety percent of all the world-hating saints in history were just as acquisitive and unattractive, basically, as the rest of us are.”
― J.D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey

“Don't hate me because I can't remember some person immediately. Especially when they look like everybody else, and talk and dress and act like everybody else.”
― J.D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey

“This whole goddamn house stinks of ghosts.”
― J.D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey

“...I'm sick of it. I'm sick of not having the courage to be an absolute nobody. I'm sick of myself and everybody else that wants to make some kind of a splash.”
― J.D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey

“We're freaks, the two of us, Franny and I. I'm a twenty-five-year-old freak and she's a twenty-one-year-old freak, and both those bastards are responsible. I swear to you, I could murder them both without batting an eyelash. The great teachers. The great emancipators. My God. I can't even sit down to lunch with a man any more and hold up my end of a decent conversation. I either get so bored or so goddamn preachy that if the son of a bitch had any sense, he'd break his chair over my head”
― J.D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey

“It happens to be one of those days when I see everybody in the family, including myself, through the wrong end of a telescope.”
― J.D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey

“Everything everybody does is so - I don’t know - not wrong, or even mean, or even stupid necessarily. But just so tiny and meaningless and - sad-making. And the worst part is, if you go bohemian or something crazy like that, you’re conforming just as much as everybody else, only in a different way.”
― J.D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey

“But I was afraid of the questions (much more than the accusations) you might both put to me. ”
― J.D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey

“I didn't want any degrees if all the ill-read literates and radio announcers and pedagogical dummies I knew had them by the peck. ”
― J.D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey

“I don't care where an actor acts. It can be in summer stock, it can be over a radio, it can be over television, it can be in a goddam Broadway theatre, complete with the most fashionable, most well-fed, most sunburned-looking audience you can imagine. But I'll tell you a terrible secret — Are you listening to me? There isn't anyone out there who isn't Seymour's Fat Lady. That includes your Professor Tupper, buddy. And all his goddam cousins by the dozens. There isn't anyone anywhere that isn't Seymour's Fat Lady. Don't you know that? Don't you know that goddam secret yet? And don't you know — listen to me, now — don't you know who that Fat Lady really is? . . . Ah, buddy. Ah, buddy. It's Christ Himself. Christ Himself, buddy.”
― J.D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey

“He says the only people he ever really wants to meet for a drink somewhere are all either dead or unavailable.”
― J.D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey

“I’m sorry, I’m awful, I’ve just felt so terribly destructive all week. It’s awful. I’m horrible.”
― J.D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey

“Everybody in this family gets his goddamn religion in a different package.”
― J.D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey

“You know, I’m the only one in this family who has no problems,” Zooey said. “And you know why? Because any time I’m feeling blue, or puzzled, what I do, I just invite a few people to come visit me in the bathroom and–well, we iron things out together, that’s all.”
― J.D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey

“I'm sick to death of being the heavy in everybody's life.”
― J.D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey

“I feel like someone in a terribly sophisticated play. The funny part is, I'm not sophisticated. I'm not anything. I'm just me.”
― J.D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey

“I love you I love you I love you. Do you actually know I've only danced with you twice in eleven months?”
― J.D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey