"How do you know you're going to do something, untill you do it?"
About this Quote
Salinger’s line is a small grenade lobbed at the illusion of self-knowledge. It’s phrased like a casual comeback, but its real target is the way people talk about intention as if it were a contract signed in advance. The double “do” matters: first as a promise (I’m going to), then as an act (I did). The sentence insists that the second is the only version that counts.
The misspelling of “until” (or its deliberate roughness) also fits the Salinger atmosphere: thought spoken faster than it’s polished, the voice of someone allergic to adult neatness. That’s the subtext. In Salinger’s world, the more confidently you narrate your future self, the more suspicious you become. Certainty is often a performance, something people use to sound stable, mature, in control. The quote punctures that performance with a shrug: prove it.
Contextually, this sits comfortably inside Salinger’s obsession with adolescence, not as an age but as a moral stance - the refusal to fake feelings, to pretend you already know who you are. It’s also a critique of postwar American scripting: career tracks, respectable decisions, the idea that character can be announced like a major. Salinger’s intent is less motivational than diagnostic. He’s pointing at the gap between the story we tell about ourselves and the messy, unrehearsed moment where we either act or don’t. The line doesn’t offer comfort; it offers a test.
The misspelling of “until” (or its deliberate roughness) also fits the Salinger atmosphere: thought spoken faster than it’s polished, the voice of someone allergic to adult neatness. That’s the subtext. In Salinger’s world, the more confidently you narrate your future self, the more suspicious you become. Certainty is often a performance, something people use to sound stable, mature, in control. The quote punctures that performance with a shrug: prove it.
Contextually, this sits comfortably inside Salinger’s obsession with adolescence, not as an age but as a moral stance - the refusal to fake feelings, to pretend you already know who you are. It’s also a critique of postwar American scripting: career tracks, respectable decisions, the idea that character can be announced like a major. Salinger’s intent is less motivational than diagnostic. He’s pointing at the gap between the story we tell about ourselves and the messy, unrehearsed moment where we either act or don’t. The line doesn’t offer comfort; it offers a test.
Quote Details
| Topic | Free Will & Fate |
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