The Catcher in the Rye question

But aren't we all unreliable narrators when we are telling a story about ourselves. We see things thru our perception not always the way it really happened.

Yes, it is ironic, because throughout the book Holden constantly points out everyone else's phoniness while completely ignoring and over-looking his own. He's also an unreliable narrator because he is depressed and sees the world through his sixteen year-old pessimistic eyes.

I think the fact that he's such an unreliable narrator is actually one of the main points of the book. The author wants us to really believe the story is being told by a moody teenager, so that unreliableness is key in my opinion.

I'd say he is an unreliable narrator; the tone of the whole book comes off as if Holden is exaggerating certain events to make himself seem like a more interesting or 'better' person. He does the same to drag other characters down due to his own insecurities - he's pretty much the typical teenage stereotype who views himself as the only one capable of deep thought, whilst everyone else is just a fake clone of each other. This is where the irony lies because, first of all, Holden is unaware that other teens he meets probably think in the same way; secondly, he is so lacking in self-awareness that he fails to see that he has been following the crowd the entire time.

Not necessarily. Don't he hate phony's?
(I haven't read the book in years so I can't remember much)

I think he lies in the story only when he's exaggerating. .

I don't understand what you mean by an unreliable narrator.... the "Catcher" isn't a piece of journalism, in the least, and is clearly a work of fiction on many levels. I really doubt J.D. Salinger ever had a weekend exactly like that, or even remotely like that, but must've condensed a lot of experiences into his mind to let them out in freewhelin' prose, so that he all but connected fictional moments of his life and packed them into a weekend. Of course, Holden is an unreliable narrator, he's a teenager, but it's not like he's an eyewitness to a murder, except that of his childhood, and that's a poetic rememberance. His reflectons are real, and that's why we read the book.

Holden is unreliable in the facts he tells the story when he was in undergoing treatment in a mental hospital or sanatorium

The quote you give should be read as an indication of a certain authentic loathing of phoniness...

It is so sad, as If you all have forgotten youth or how to open your soul — as if you didn’t know Holden at all.