J. D. Salinger Quotes

I write and have done so primarily for personal pleasure.

My purpose is to entertain and please myself. I feel that if I am entertained, then there will be enough other readers who will be entertained, too.

No writer need feel sorry for himself if he writes and enjoys it, even if he doesn't get paid.

I just write what I wanted to write. I write what amuses me. It's totally for myself. I never in my wildest dreams expected this popularity.

If people would like to come to my concerts I'd love them to come. And if they like the music that I make, I love that too. But I do not make music for other people. I make it to please myself.

You should write, first of all, to please yourself. You shouldn't care a damn about anybody else at all. But writing can't be a way of life; the important part of writing is living. You have to live in such a way that your writing emerges from it.

I love writing. I feel more connected to that than I do a lot of the other things.

I don't necessarily intend to publish posthumously, but I do like to write for myself.

I love to write and I assure you I write regularly... But I write for myself, for my own pleasure. And I want to be left alone to do it.

I'm not thinking when I'm writing, 'How's this going to read?' Or, 'What percentage of the audience is going to stay with me?' The thing itself is what gives me pleasure. Sometimes stuff just falls onto the page so beautifully and happily that it's deeply satisfying. It's selfish!

Writing helps me create a different world that I can escape to.

All any artist can do is please themselves.

I never think about what others are doing. I do a film for myself, not others.

I just wrote what I felt like writing since they seemed to sell.

I hardly ever think about audience. I just try to tell a story for me. I write the kind of story I would like to read.

I will always want to do whatever it is that my heart is in, and whether I get paid for it or not means nothing. It doesn't matter. I'll do it if it means something to me and I want to be a part of it.

I only write music for myself, I don't try and appeal to anyone else.

I have never written for an audience. On the other hand I do not write merely to please myself.

I write because I can't imagine not writing.

I essentially write for myself.

I keep writing because it is deeply pleasurable to me.

I think as long as you're being creative and finding your own work interesting, that's all that matters.

With my designs and my ideas, I want to please myself first.

I have fun writing. I don't make it a chore. I don't have to struggle with it.

If I'm writing strictly for others, how does that show what I'm experiencing or thinking? I just got to a point where I realized I could be as personal as I wanted to be and people could relate to those situations if they so choose.