J. D. Salinger Quotes

Writing was, is, and will always be my favorite job.

Music is all I've ever done.

Acting became more than a profession to me. It became a sort of religion.

Acting is my career and activism is my passionate hobby. But acting is my livelihood.

Acting is what I chose to do. It's what I feel I need to do.

Acting is my life. It's what I live and breathe.

I hope to keep entertaining in some way until I can't physically entertain any longer. It's what I was born to do, and I love this profession.

I'm always writing or playing because that is my life.

When I write, I make decent money doing it, but I don't wake up dreaming about writing.

Acting is the only thing I ever really wanted to do, and I'm really ill-prepared to do anything else.

Writing wasn't about making money. I wanted to find fulfillment in writing and telling stories, and that's what's driven me.

Show business is my life.

I'll always write picture books - it's just what I do. I'd even do it if I wasn't being paid.

I won't talk or deal with a young writer unless I sense he has utterly given his life over to it. It's a waste of my time. If they don't feel 'called' - why in God's name would you do this?

I can't imagine doing anything except acting.

Acting is my passion. I can't see myself doing anything else.

I'll never retire. They'll have to take my computer out of my cold, dead hands. I'm addicted to writing. I feel physically unwell if I'm not doing it.

I decided that was the greatest idea I had ever heard. I started writing every day. I never stopped.

[On writing:] What a difficult kind of work to choose! But of course one did not choose it. There was no choice.

I have an object, a task, let me say the word, a passion. The profession of writing is a violent and almost indestructible one.

When I'm writing, I know I'm doing the thing I was born to do.

I don't think I ever had a morning where I woke up and said I'm going to be a professional poet. I know I've always loved poetry, I've always loved writing poetry and I've always loved sharing poetry. I've also always known that I wanted that to somehow be a very large part of my life and I'm very fortunate that it's such a large part of my life.

You try to learn who you are. You work hard. You've either got it or you don't when it comes to writing books. And you tend to only get these things if you want them, and want them to the exclusion of everything else.

I was always writing. When I was a little kid, before I learned how to write, I would tell stories. But as soon I as capable, I started writing. I filled notebooks and notebooks until I got my first computer when I was 11. It never really occurred to me that I would do anything else.

If you can still write in spite of the fact that you're not getting paid, that nobody cares about what you're writing, that nobody wants to publish it, that everybody is telling you to do something else, and you still want to and you still enjoy it and you can't stop doing it...then you're a writer.