J. D. Salinger Quotes

There's nothing that makes me cry and laugh more than stories about friendship.

I remember my fourth grade teacher reading 'Charlotte's Web' and 'Stuart Little' to us - both, of course, by E. B. White. His stories were genuinely funny, thought provoking and full of irony and charm. He didn't condescend to his readers, which was why I liked his books, and why I wasn't a big reader of other children's' books.

Some of the writers I admire who seem very, very funny and very emotional to me can develop a closeness with the reader without giving too much of themselves away. Lorrie Moore comes to mind, as does David Sedaris. When they write, the reader thinks that they're being trusted as a friend.

When you read a short story, you come out a little more aware and a little more in love with the world around you. What I want is to have the reader come out just 6 percent more awake to the world.

I think that good storytelling of any kind does promote a humility in that it encourages you to see the world the way that other people see it.

I want my readers to feel, to think, sometimes to laugh. But most of all I want them to enjoy a good read.

Well, I was a big fan of the book and therein a huge fan of the girl Precious. And so I felt like I knew this girl. I felt like I'd grown up alongside her. I felt like she was in my family. She was my friend and she was like people I didn't want to be friends with.

But in film you always watch situations or stories that you really have no relation to. A lot of times just because there's no personal connection doesn't mean you can't connect with the film or the characters in the film.

For the most part, it is really nice when people come up to me, because I do think that people who are awkward relate to me, and that's really nice. It's generally good.

When a story is told really well and is real, even if it's not about their own lives, people can apply it to themselves.

When you fall in love with a book, something especially interesting and exciting is happening because of the way language works on us as human beings. And I love language.

That's the power of fiction, that it can take the collective and make it personal.

If you're living a nice lifestyle and you have no problems, you put on our record, you won't get it.

So, I've got to have food, I've got to have humor. But these things are just the way in to what the show's really about, I think, which is connecting with the people.

People just love stories.

If I can relate to the joke, it's going to be funny.

Long conversations with pals when neither you nor they have had a drink can be a test of palship.

I think it's all about how much you love, understand and can relate to the material you are given.

Once you allow yourself to identify with the people in a story, then you might begin to see yourself in that story even if on the surface it's far removed from your situation.

There are moments that you suffer a lot, moments you won't photograph. There are some people you like better than others. But you give, you receive, you cherish, you are there. When you are really there, you know when you see the picture later what you are seeing.

Someone once told me that movies are a universal passport. And it's true, wherever you go.

I love nicknames. It makes me feel loved. It makes me feel less alone in this world.

The novel space is a pure space. I'm nobody once I go into that room. I'm not gay, I'm not bald, I'm not Irish. I'm not anybody. I'm nobody. I'm the guy telling the story, and the only person that matters is the person reading that story, the target. It's to get that person to feel what I'm trying to dramatize.

But I still feel like a normal person... I've walked the streets and I know what it feels like. I speak with humility, and apparently those songs connect with people.

That is a good book which is opened with expectation, and closed with delight and profit.