I'm not afraid to compete. It's just the opposite. Don't you see that? I'm afraid I will compete - that's what scares me. That's why I quit the Theatre Department. Just because I'm so horribly conditioned to accept everybody else's values, and just because I like applause and people to rave about me, doesn't make it right. I'm ashamed of it. I'm sick of it. I'm sick of not having the courage to be an absolute nobody. I'm sick of myself and everybody else that wants to make some kind of a splash.
("Franny and Zooey")
More Quotes from J.D. Salinger:
She was a girl who for a ringing phone dropped exactly nothing. She looked as if her phone had been ringing continually ever since she had reached puberty.J.D. Salinger
I live in New York, and I was thinking about the lagoon in Central Park, down near Central Park South. I was wondering if it would be frozen over when I got home, and if it was, where did the ducks go? I was wondering where the ducks went when the lagoon got all icy and frozen over. I wondered if some guy came in a truck and took them away to a zoo or something. Or if they just flew away.
J.D. Salinger
That's the whole trouble. When you're feeling very depressed, you can't even think.
J.D. Salinger
He once told Allie and I that if he'd had to shoot anybody, he wouldn't've known which direction to shoot in. He said the Army was practically as full of bastards as the Nazis were.
J.D. Salinger
Her joke of a name aside, her general unprettiness aside, she was, in terms of permanently memorable, immoderately perceptive, small-area faces, a stunning and final girl.
J.D. Salinger
I mean not try to analyze everything to death for once, if possible, especially me.
J.D. Salinger
Readers Who Like This Quotation Also Like:
Based on Topics: Competition Quotes, Courage QuotesAs soon as I can afford a studio space, I'll paint again.
Max Cannon
God and Country are an unbeatable team; they break all records for oppression and bloodshed.
Luis Bunuel
I cannot sustain hate for longer than a couple of years.
Mercedes McCambridge