J. D. Salinger Quotes

God, how impossible life is without money. Nothing can ever overcome it, it's everything when it's anything. How can I write in peace with endless worries of money, money, money? (“Disappearing Act”)

When you grow up without it, you want to have it. It's funny, in America some people say, 'Why do you want to make money so much?' And I say, 'Well, I guess you didn't starve as a kid.'

Money can't buy you happiness but it does bring you a more pleasant form of misery.

My God! How terrible these money questions are for an artist!

For, when you are approaching poverty, you make one discovery which outweighs some of the others. You discover boredom and mean complications and the beginnings of hunger, but you also discover the great redeeming feature of poverty: the fact that it annihilates the future. Within certain limits, it is actually true that the less money you have, the less you worry.

If dirt were dollars, I wouldn't have to worry anymore.

When I was younger I was completely without money - when I was studying in Budapest, when I was a refugee.

I know at last what distinguishes man from animals; financial worries.

Great pressure is put on kids who don't have dads to get out and make money, and make life easier for everybody. It was always, 'Hurry up, grow up, make money, there's no man to do it for us.'

Money's important. Everyone cares about money. And when you don't have money, money becomes the overriding obsession of your life.

Money is always a pressure.

Though I knew that poverty certainly didn't buy happiness, I wasn't convinced that money did, either.

I would be the first to say that while a lack of money can cause misery, money doesn't buy you happiness.

Let me tell you something: I have members in my charter who, after paying their rent and house bills and taking care of their families, don't even have enough money left over to pay the fifteen dollars a week dues.

My first novel is loaded with food references largely because my cupboards were bare, and I was writing hungry.

Constantly having to think about money is not nice. People used to say, 'Being rich doesn't make you happy'. And I'd think, 'I've got no electricity, nothing - tell that to my empty fridge'.

Many good qualities are not sufficient to balance a single want - the want of money.

I had spent many days hungry; had slept on railway stations at times because I did not have money to pay for a hotel room... there were moments when I felt I had compromised my dignity as a human being and as an actor.

The way I look at it, everything is a trade. You acquire some money, so then you've got no financial burdens, but everyone wants your money and so who can you trust? Or you've got no money and you can trust anyone, but then you've got the worry to pay bills. Which is worse?

My family didn't have a lot of money, and I'm grateful for that. Money is the longest route to happiness.

I don't believe we are supposed to go through life defeated and not having enough money to pay our bills or send our kids to college.

I had a good upbringing, we didn't have any money, but there was a lot of love in my family.

When I was a nurse I never had much money, and I was still happy then.

Money isn't important, but you have to have enough, so you don't have to think about it. Thinking about money is a drag.

When I was a deacon, the ominous signs of the Great Depression began to appear. Tens of thousands lost their jobs. Money was scarce. Families had to do without. Some young people did not ask their mothers, 'What's for dinner?' because they knew all too well that their cupboards held very little.