JD Salinger interview
an excerpt from the NY Times interview, November 3, 1974
J. D. Salinger Speaks About His Silence
By LACEY FOSBURGH
"There is a marvelous peace in not publishing. It's peaceful. Still. Publishing is a terrible invasion of my privacy. I like to write. I love to write. But I write just for myself and my own pleasure."
"Some stories, my property, have been stolen, someone's appropriated them. It's an illicit act. It's unfair. Suppose you had a coat you liked and somebody went into your closet and stole it.
That's how I feel."
"I'm not trying to hide the gaucheries of my youth. I just don't think they're worthy of publishing."
(…)
Did he expect to publish another work soon?
There was a pause.
"I really don't know how soon," he said. There was another pause, and then Mr. Salinger began to talk rapidly about how much he was writing, long hours, every day, and he said he was under contract to no one for another book.
"I don't necessarily intend to publish posthumously," he said, "but I do like to write for myself.
"I pay for this kind of attitude. I'm known as a strange, aloof kind of man. But all I'm doing is trying to protect myself and my work."