Important Quotes
- “Would you care to stop on the way and join me for cocktail?” (ch 9) -Holden is a lonely person. This quote shows how desperate he is for a little company. He asks the cab driver but the cab driver rejects him. This again, makes him want to stay as a kid even more. He always is let down by adults, but that is because he does not open up to people. Anyway, why would a cab driver accept to have a drink with one of his clients? Besides Phoebe, Holden feels he has nobody else to talk to because he believes no one else really listens.
- "God, I love it when a kid's nice and polite when you tighten their skate for them or something. Most kids are. They really are" (ch 16) -This quote depicts how Holden is attached to childhood. He does not want to grow up, he likes children. Since he believes that all adults are phonies, children are the only people he can rely on. He wants to remain a kid because they are the only people that are truly nice.
- Mr. Antolini to Holden: "I have a feeling that you're riding for some kind of a terrible, terrible fall. . . . 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" (ch 24)
-This could be an allusion to the climax of the story. Mr. Antolini is warning Holden of his growth. He is being the catcher in the rye for Holden. Holden always said he wanted to be the one that saved the kids from the fall, but this time it was backwards. He realizes he cannot be the catcher in the rye. It also serves like an awakening call for him because he is saying that type of fall is for a man who quits looking for the "something" he is looking for before starting. What Mr. Antolini is saying definitely describes him because he is always feeling as if people let him down. This moment brings the story closer towards the climax.
- "I'm quite illiterate, but I read a lot." (ch 3)
-Holden is always lying to himself, or contradicting. He is really confused about everything. Throughout the novel, there are many moment when Holden does not accept things. He keeps trying to make himself look as if he is completely different from every one else.
- She was right, though. It is "If a body meet a body coming through the rye." I didn't know it then, though. "I thought it was 'If a body catch a body,'" I said. "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'd 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. I know it's crazy." (ch 22)