Quotes from "The Catcher in the Rye"

Chapter 1 (opening lines of the novel) "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. In the first pace, that stuff bores me, and in the second place, my parents would have about two hemorrhages apiece if I told anything pretty personal about them."

Chapter 2 ""Life is a game, boy. life is a game that one plays according to the rules." (...) 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."

Chapter 3 ""What really knocks me out is a book that, when you are done reading it, you wish the author was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up whenever you felt like it."

Chapter 20 "Anything except sticking me in a (...) cemetery. People coming and putting a bunch of flowers on your stomach on Sunday, and all that crap? Who wants flowers when they're dead? Nobody."

Chapter 26 (closing lines of the novel) "Don't ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing somebody."