"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."

“"You know Adam?" Teddy asked him."Do I know who?""Adam. In the Bible."Nicholson smiled. "Not personally," he said dryly.”

“"You love God, don't you?" Nicholson asked, with a little excess of quietness. "Isn't that your forte, so to speak? From what I heard on that tape and from what Al Babcock —" "Yes, sure, I love Him. But I don't love Him sentimentally. He never said anybody had to love Him sentimentally," Teddy said. "If I were God, I certainly wouldn't want people to love me sentimentally. It's too unreliable."”

“"I see you are looking at my feet," he said to her when car was in motion."I beg your pardon?" said the woman."I said I see you're looking at my feet"."I beg your pardon. I happened to be looking at the floor," said the woman, and faced the doors of the car."If you want to look at my feet, say so," said the young man. "But don't be a God-damned sneak about it.""Let me out here, please," the woman said quickly to the girl operating the car.The car doors opened and the woman got out without looking back."I have two normal feet and I can't see the slightest God-damned reason why anybody should stare at them," said the young man.”

“"I never saw so many tigers."”

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

“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.”