John D. MacDonald Quotes

• The dividing line [between friends and acquaintances] is communication, I think. A friend is someone to whom you can say any jackass thing that enters your mind. With acquaintances, you are forever aware of their slightly unreal image of you, and to keep them content, you edit yourself to fit. Many marriages are between acquaintances. You can be with a person for three hours of your life and have a friend. Another will remain an acquaintance for thirty years.

  John D. MacDonald

  Communication, Thinking, Years

  56 Copy quote

• Integrity is not a conditional word. It doesn't blow in the wind or change with the weather. It is your inner image of yourself, and if you look in there and see a man who won't cheat, then you know he never will.

  John D. MacDonald

  Cheating, Honesty, Integrity

  "The Turquoise Lament". Book by John D. MacDonald, November 1973.

  64 Copy quote

• The only thing in the world worth a damn is the strange, touching, pathetic, awesome nobility of the individual human spirit.

  John D. MacDonald

  Philosophy, Touching, World

  John D MacDonald (2013). “Bright Orange for the Shroud: Introduction by Lee Child: Travis McGee”, p.5, Random House

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• Old friend, there are people—young and old—that I like, and people that I do not like. The former are always in short supply. I am turned off by humorless fanaticism, whether it's revolutionary mumbo-jumbo by a young one, or loud lessons from scripture by and old one. We are all comical, touching, slapstick animals, walking on our hind legs, trying to make it a noble journey from womb to tomb, and the people who can't see it all that way bore hell out of me.

  John D. MacDonald

  Journey, Animal, People

  18 Copy quote

• If the cards are stacked against you, reshuffle the deck.

  John D. MacDonald

  Cards, Deck, Ifs

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• Friendships, like marriages, are dependent on avoiding the unforgivable.

  John D. MacDonald

  Friendship, Unforgivable, Avoiding

  "The Last One Left". Book by John D. MacDonald, 1967.

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• You have to start knowing yourself so well that you begin to know other people. A piece of us is in every person we can ever meet.

  John D. MacDonald

  Self, Knowing, People

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• [To] me organized religion, the formalities and routines, [is] like being marched in formation to look at a sunset.

  John D. MacDonald

  Sunset, Religion, Looks

  John D MacDonald (2013). “Travis McGee: Books 4-6: Introduction by Lee Child”, p.251, Random House

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• My purpose is to entertain myself first and other people secondly.

  John D. MacDonald

  Writing, People, Purpose

  "Personal Quotes/ Biography". www.imdb.com.

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• New York is where it is going to begin, I think. You can see it coming. The insect experts have learned how it works with locusts. Until locust population reaches a certain density, they all act like any grasshoppers. When the critical point is reached, they turn savage and swarm, and try to eat the world. We're nearing a critical point. One day soon two strangers will bump into each other at high noon in the middle of New York. But this time they won't snarl and go on. They will stop and stare and then leap at each others

  John D. MacDonald

  New York, Thinking, Two

  46 Copy quote

• Night and gin and music-the right setting for peeling off the thin clinging layers of bullshit and finding one's way down closer to the essential self.

  John D. MacDonald

  Music, Night, Self

  27 Copy quote

• A nonreader is somebody standing there in a blindfold.

  John D. MacDonald

  Blindfolds, Standing There, Standing

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• I want story, wit, music, wryness, color, and a sense of reality in what I read, and I try to get it in what I write.

  John D. MacDonald

  Writing, Reality, Color

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• Up with life. Stamp out all small and large indignities. Leave everyone alone to make it without pressure. Down with hurting. Lower the standard of living. Do without plastics. Smash the servo-mechanisms. Stop grabbing. Snuff the breeze and hug the kids. Love all love. Hate all hate.

  John D. MacDonald

  Hurt, Hate, Kids

  JOHN D. MACDONALD (1971). “A TAN AND SANDY SILENCE”

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• All thinking is done with the glands. Logic is added later to tidy things up.

  John D. MacDonald

  Thinking, Done, Logic

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• Being an adult means accepting those situations where no action is possible.

  John D. MacDonald

  Mean, Adults, Action

  John D. MacDonald (1985). “Five complete Travis McGee novels”, Outlet

  13 Copy quote

• Integrity is not a conditional word. It doesn't blow in the wind or change with the weather.

  John D. MacDonald

  Integrity, Blow, Wind

  "The Turquoise Lament". Interview with John D. MacDonald, 1973.

  33 Copy quote

• Now each one of us, black or white, is a symbol. The war is out in the open and the skin color is a uniform. All the deep and basic similarities of the human condition are forgotten so that we can exaggerate the few differences that exist.

  John D. MacDonald

  War, White, Differences

  14 Copy quote

• Way over half the murders committed in this country are by close friends or relatives of the deceased. A gun makes a loud and satisfying noise in a moment of passion and requires no agility and very little strength. How many murders wouldn't happen, if they all had to use hammers and knives?

  John D. MacDonald

  Country, Passion, Gun

  "The Scarlet Ruse". Book by John D. MacDonald, 1973.

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• The only thing that prisons demonstrably cure is heterosexuality.

  John D. MacDonald

  Heterosexuality, Prison, Cures

  John D. MacDonald (1987). “The Long Lavender Look”, Fawcett

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• This was not some pretty little girl, coyly flirtatious, delicately stimulated. This was the mature female of the species, vivid, handsome and strong demanding that all the life within her be matched. Her instinct would detect any hedging, any dishonesty, any less than complete response to her - and then she would be gone for good.

  John D. MacDonald

  Girl, Strong, Hedging

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• At times it seems as if arranging to have no commitment of any kind to anyone would be a special freedom. But in fact the whole idea works in reverse. The most deadly commitment of all is to be committed only to one's self. Some come to realize this after they are in the nursing home.

  John D. MacDonald

  Relationship, Home, Commitment

  18 Copy quote

• We were about to give up and call it a night when somebody threw the girl off the bridge.

  John D. MacDonald

  Girl, Giving Up, Night

  8 Copy quote

• A man with a credit card is in hock to his own image of himself.

  John D. MacDonald

  Men, Cards, Credit

  John D MacDonald (2013). “The Deep Blue Goodbye: Introduction by Lee Child: Travis McGee”, p.61, Random House

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• I am wary of the whole dreary deadening structured mess that we have built into such a glittering top-heavy structure that there is nothing left to see but the glitter, and the brute routines of maintaining it.

  John D. MacDonald

  Glitter, Maintaining, Structure

  John D MacDonald (1985). “Deep Blue Goodbye”, Fawcett

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