J. D. Salinger Quotes

It's like I know what I gotta say, I just don't know how to say it to you.

These days I just can't seem to say what I mean [...]. I just can't. Every time I try to say something, it misses the point. Either that or I end up saying the opposite of what I mean. The more I try to get it right the more mixed up it gets. Sometimes I can't even remember what I was trying to say in the first place. It's like my body's split in two and one of me is chasing the other me around a big pillar. We're running circles around it. The other me has the right words, but I can never catch her.

Suddenly, I don't know what to say. It happens often to me. I know what I want to say, I think about whether it is what I mean, but when the moment comes to speak, I can't say it. - Nana Kleinfrankenheim, Vivre Sa Vie.

I just feel like sometimes I'm a force to be dealt with. My talents are sometimes overused and also sometimes underused. It's not easy being me.

'My Struggle' came from a place of questioning and feelings of inauthenticity and frustration, and almost all of that is gone.

I think I'll always draw from being a person that doesn't know how to have a normal life, whatever a normal life is.

No matter who you are, and no matter what you've accomplished, I have yet to meet someone who doesn't still feel like they're banging their head against some wall over something in their way.

I am not a calm, happy person. I am complicated.

I can't do this because I can't...I can't be the man I want to be with you. And that means that this - this just becomes...another reminder of what I am not.

Half the time I don't know what I'm trying to say.

How I wish I were able to say what I think.

he used to think that he wanted to be good, he wanted to be kind, he wanted to be brave and wise, but it was all pretty difficult. He wanted to be loved, too, if he could fit it in.

In my mind I am eloquent; I can climb intricate scaffolds of words to reach the highest cathedral ceilings and paint my thoughts. But when I open my mouth, everything collapses.

I didn't want to pick at Micah and me until we unraveled. I wanted to leave it alone and enjoy it. I just didn't know how to do that.

I don’t like to talk to people, because I can’t express myself satisfactorily. I don’t say the things I mean.

I’m not good at talking,” Naoko said. “Haven’t been for the longest while. I start to say something and the wrong words come out. Wrong or sometimes completely backward. I try to go back and correct it, but things get even more complicated and confused, so that I don’t even remember what I started to say in the first place. Like I was split into two or something, one half chasing the other. And there’s this big pillar in the middle and they go chasing each other around and around it. The other me always latches onto the right word and this me absolutely never catches up

Your personal freedom to experience yourself and life as you wish is not being limited. Step into your choices and stop telling yourself that you can't, when what you really mean is that you don't want other people to feel the way you think that are going to feel when they see you making the choices you really want to make.

I can never say what I want to say, it's been like this for a while now. I try to say something but all I get are wrong words - the wrong words or the exact opposite words from what I mean. I try to correct myself, and that only makes it worse. I lose track of what I was trying to say to begin with. It's like I'm split in two and playing tag with myself. One half is chasing this big, fat post. The other me has the right words, but this can't catch her.

There are some things about myself I can’t explain to anyone. There are some things I don’t understand at all. I can’t tell what I think about things or what I’m after. I don’t know what my strengths are or what I’m supposed to do about them. But if I start thinking about these things in too much detail the whole thing gets scary. And if I get scared I can only think about myself. I become really self-centered, and without meaning to, I hurt people. So I’m not such a wonderful human being.

I always find it more difficult to say the things I mean than the things I don't.

I think there are times when you're jamming with the universe, and other times when it feels like no matter how hard I work, no matter how good a person I am, I will always be punished for being mediocre.

The memory came faint and cold of the story I might have told, a story in the likeness of my life, I mean without the courage to end or the strength to go on.

Once again, I've been thwarted by the massive difference between my vision of the successful me and the me I'm currently stuck with.

And she keeps saying, how can you do this to me? And i want to scream, what do you mean, how can I do this to you? Aren't we confusing our pronouns here? The question, really, is How could I do this to myself?