J. D. Salinger
| Date of Birth | : | 01 Jan, 1919 |
| Date of Death | : | 27 Jan, 2010 |
| Place of Birth | : | Manhattan, New York, United States |
| Profession | : | Author |
| Nationality | : | American |
J.D. Salinger was a literary giant despite his slim body of work and reclusive lifestyle. His landmark novel, The Catcher in the Rye, set a new course for literature in post-WWII America and vaulted Salinger to the heights of literary fame. Despite his slim body of work and reclusive lifestyle, Salinger was one of the most influential American writers of the 20th century. His short stories, many of which appeared in The New Yorker, inspired the early careers of writers such as Phillip Roth, John Updike and Harold Brodkey. In 1953, Salinger moved from New York City and led a secluded life, only publishing one new story before his death.
Early Life
Writer Jerome David Salinger was born on January 1, 1919, in New York, New York. Salinger was the youngest of two children born to Sol Salinger, the son of a rabbi who ran a thriving cheese and ham import business, and Miriam, Sol's Scottish-born wife. At a time when mixed marriages of this sort were looked at with disdain from all corners of society, Miriam's non-Jewish background was so well hidden that it was only after his bar mitzvah at the age of 14 that Salinger learned of his mother's roots.
Despite his apparent intellect, Salinger—or Sonny as he was known as child—wasn't much of a student. After flunking out of the McBurney School near his home in New York's Upper West Side, he was shipped off by his parents to Valley Forge Military Academy in Wayne, Pennsylvania.
Aspiring Writer
After graduating from Valley Forge, Salinger returned to his hometown for one year to attend New York University before heading off to Europe, flush with some cash and encouragement from his father to learn another language and learn more about the import business. But Salinger, who spent the bulk of his five months overseas in Vienna, paid closer attention to language than business.
Upon returning home, he made another attempt at college, this time at Ursinus College in Pennsylvania, before coming back to New York and taking night classes at Columbia University. There, Salinger met Professor Whit Burnett, who would change his life.
Quotes
It's funny. All you have to do is say something nobody understands and they'll do practically anything you want them to.
People always clap for the wrong reasons.
Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around - nobody big, I mean - except me. And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff - I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be.
If you have something to offer, someone will learn something from you. It's a beautiful reciprocal arrangement. And it isn't education. It's history. It's poetry.
The more expensive a school is, the more crooks it has — I'm not kidding.
I’m just sick of ego, ego, ego. My own and everybody else’s. I’m sick of everybody that wants to get somewhere, do something distinguished and all, be somebody interesting. It’s disgusting.
You think of the book you'd most like to be reading, and then you sit down and shamelessly write it.
Who in the Bible besides Jesus knew--knew--that we're carrying the Kingdom of Heaven around with us, inside, where we're all too goddam stupid and sentimental and unimaginative to look?
Poets are always taking the weather so personally. They're always sticking their emotions in things that have no emotions.
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.
