The Catcher in the Rye

J. D. Salinger

Get this SparkNote to go!

Important Quotations Explained

1. “Life is a game, boy. Life is a game that one plays according to the rules.”
“Yes, sir. I know it is. I know it.”
Game, my ass. Some game. If you get on the side where all the hot-shots are, then it’s a game, all right—I’ll admit that. But if you get on the other side, where there aren’t any hot-shots, then what’s a game about it? Nothing. No game.


2. [Ackley] took another look at my hat . . . “Up home we wear a hat like that to shoot deer in, for Chrissake,” he said. “That’s a deer shooting hat.”
“Like hell it is.” I took it off and looked at it. I sort of closed one eye, like I was taking aim at it. “This is a people shooting hat,” I said. “I shoot people in this hat.”


3. The best thing, though, in that museum was that everything always stayed right where it was. Nobody’d move. . . . Nobody’d be different. The only thing that would be different would be you.


4. . . . 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’d do all day. I’d just be the catcher in the rye and all.


5. “I have a feeling that you’re riding for some kind of terrible, terrible fall. . . . The whole arrangement’s designed for men who, at some time or other in their lives, were looking for something their own environment couldn’t supply them with. . . . So they gave up looking.”


More Help

Watch the Video SparkNote

A quick and easy plot summary of The Catcher in the Rye.

Buy the print The Catcher in the Rye SparkNote on BN.com

The SparkNote you can hold in your hand.

Buy the ebook of this SparkNote on BN.com

Easy to view on your iPod, phone, or ereader.

EVEN MORE HELP! ↓

Take a Study Break

Green YOUR SCHOOL!

Click here to get involved with dosomething.org!

John Krasinski's BIG MIRACLE

Click to watch the trailer and read exclusive star interviews!

Do you like Anna?

Read Dear Albert... from ANNA's perspective!

BATTLESHIP, the movie

Here's why we're super jazzed about it.


The Book

Cover image

Order The Catcher in the Rye at BN.com

All the words, printed on paper. Classic!

Cover image

Read What You Love, Anywhere You Like

Get Our FREE NOOK Reading Apps