J. D. Salinger Quotes

If you're losing your soul and you know it, then you've still got a soul left to lose.

I've had my share of dark days of the soul. I try not to focus on it too much so it doesn't get to me.

A man may quarrel with himself alone; that is, by controverting his better instincts and knowledge when brought face to face with temptation.

How can one be well...when one suffers morally?

Sometimes you can't see your way out. The "dark night of the soul" - it's a reality for many, many people.

Saw so much of the wickedness of my heart that I longed to get away from myself...I felt almost pressed to death with my own vileness. Oh what a body of death is there in me...Oh the closest walk with God is the sweetest heaven that can be enjoyed on earth!

There is nothing more alluring to man than freedom of conscience, but neither is there anything more agonizing.

Somewhere between raising hell and amazing grace, Lord I know just how they feel.

Whether a man lives or dies in vain can be measured only by the way he faces his own problems, by the success or failure of the inner conflict within his own soul. And of this no one may know save God.

Some of the greatest battles will be fought within the silent chambers of your own soul.

Many people experience Gethsemane moments.

Senator H. Alexander Smith of New Jersey spent the day wrestling with his conscience. He won.

My principal anguish, and the wellspring of all my joys and sorrows, has been the incessant merciless battle between the spirit and the flesh.

It's really hard to watch yourself.

My life is such a contradiction. My soul yearns for holiness and then runs from the mortification necessary to attain it.

The man who wishes to understand himself thoroughly must with his unrest, uncertainty, and even his weakness and sinfulness, with his life and death, draw near to Christ.

How awful is that hour when con, science stings.

My conscience aches but it's going to lose the fight.

I do not understand how a man can be a true believer, in whom sin is not the greatest burden, sorrow and trouble.

As I walked through the wilderness of this world, I lighted on a certain place, where was a den; and I laid me down in that place to sleep: and as I slept I dreamed a dream. I dreamed, and behold I saw a man clothed with rags, standing in a certain place, with his face from his own house, a book in his hand, and a great burden upon his back. I looked, and saw him open the book, and read therein; and as he read, he wept and trembled: and not being able longer to contain, he brake out with a lamentable cry; saying, 'What shall I do?'

The devil on my right shoulder must have brutally strangled the angel on my left.

The most difficult dilemma for a person is perhaps when his heart testifies to an inevitable reality yet his tongue will not proclaim it, when his mind screams in acceptance of truth but he cant bring himself to state it.

I nod, because I do understand. I'm just not sure how to go about divorcing myself from the evil I've already accepted.

There is a spiritual side to me that goes real deep, but I confess right up front that I'm the biggest sinner of them all.

The need to document my insanity is an affliction I have not yet cured myself of.