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"We don't talk, we hold forth. We don't converse, we expound."
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"Everybody talks, but there is no conversation."

"Words, they say, are the food of minds. But, like other foods, they can do little by themselves."

"The chief deficiency I see in the skeptical movement is its polarization: Us vs. Them - the sense that we have a monopoly on the truth; that those other people who believe in all these stupid doctrines are morons; that if you're sensible, you'll listen to us; and if not, to hell with you. This is nonconstructive. It does not get our message across. It condemns us to permanent minority status."

"The longer a person's twitter @username is, the harder it is to argue with them - on twitter."

"If one is talking about a vile thing it is better to talk of it in coarse language, one is less likely to be seduced into excusing it."

"If you want to appear more confident-speak slowly, articulately, clearly, and deliberately. Communicating with clarity will not only help you build more confidence in yourself, but it will inspire respect from others."

"The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place."

"I'll tell you a piece of news - I hope you have not heard it before: for good, bad, or indifferent, one always likes to be the first to tell."

"All the good stuff has already been said by someone somewhere at some point in time. You just have to find it. Today, communication pretty much comes down to understanding - saying what you have to say clearly and effectively...and then living it."

"Be careful what you say and do around a writer, your words and actions may become material."
Explore more quotes by J.D. Salinger


"I didn't want any degrees if all the ill-read literates and radio announcers and pedagogical dummies I knew had them by the peck."


"I'm not trying to tell you," he said, "that only educated and scholarly men are able to contribute something valuable to the world. It's not so. But I do say that educated and scholarly men, if they're brilliant and creative to begin with - which, unfortunately, is rarely the case-tend to leave infinitely more valuable records behind them than men do who are merely brilliant and creative. They tend to express themselves more clearly, and they usually have a passion for following their thoughts through to the end. And--most important-nine times out of ten they have more humility than the unscholarly thinker."


"As much as anything else, it was a stare, not so paradoxically, of a privacy-lover who, once his privacy has been invaded, doesn't quite approve when the invader just gets up and leaves, one-two-three, like that."


"I don't know what good it is to know so much and be smart as whips and all if it doesn't make you happy."


"I took her dress over to the closet and hung it up. It was funny. It made me feel sort of sad when I hung it up. I thought of her going in a store and buying it, and nobody in the store knowing she was a prostitute and all. The salesman probably just thought she was a regular girl when she bought it. It made me feel sad as hell- I don't know why exactly."


"One of the few things left in the world, aside from the world itself, that sadden me every day is an awareness that you get upset if Boo Boo or Walt tells you you're saying something that sounds like me. You sort of take it as an accusation of piracy, a little slam at your individuality. Is it so bad that we sometimes sound like each other? The membrane is so thin between us. Is it so important for us to keep in mind which is whose... For us, doesn't each of our individualities begin right at the point where we own up to our extremely close connections and accept the inevitability of borrowing one another's jokes, talents, idiocies?"
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