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John D. MacDonald QUOTES

John D. MacDonald QUOTES

1 " Please not yet. Those are the three eternal words. Please not yet. "

― John D. MacDonald , A Deadly Shade of Gold (Travis McGee #5)

2 " It's a tricky, complex, indifferent society, Puss. It's a loophole world. And there are a lot of clever animals who know how to reach through the loopholes and pick the pockets of the unsuspecting. "

― John D. MacDonald , Pale Gray for Guilt (Travis McGee #9)

3 " 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 , The Deep Blue Good-By (Travis McGee, #1)

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

― John D. MacDonald , Darker Than Amber (Travis McGee #7)

5 " Vulnerability is the curse of the thinking classes. "

― John D. MacDonald

6 " A woman who does not guard and treasure herself cannot be of very much value to anyone else. "

― John D. MacDonald , The Deep Blue Good-By (Travis McGee, #1)

7 " It is one thing to look at a mistreated boat and another to look at a tomb. The silence of the bay seemed more intense. And I could see the glint of the carrion flies. "

― John D. MacDonald , The Lonely Silver Rain (Travis McGee #21)

8 " When you look at pictures of people you know are dead, there is something different about the eyes. As if they anticipated their particular fate.It is a visceral recognition. I told myself I was getting too fanciful and went to bed. "

― John D. MacDonald , The Lonely Silver Rain (Travis McGee #21)

9 " When you see the ugliness behind the tears of another person, it makes you take a closer look at your own. "

― John D. MacDonald , The Green Ripper (Travis McGee #18)

10 " Education is something which should be apart from the necessities of earning a living, not a tool therefor. It needs contemplation, fallow periods, the measured and guided study of the history of man's reiteration of the most agonizing question of all: Why? "

― John D. MacDonald

11 " 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 , The Lonely Silver Rain (Travis McGee #21)

12 " mouth "

― John D. MacDonald , The Last One Left

13 " ...there are people who try to look as if they are doing a good and thorough job, and then there are the people who actually damn well do it, for its own sake. "

― John D. MacDonald , Free Fall in Crimson (Travis McGee #19)

14 " I do not like the killers, and the killing bravely and well crap. I do not like the bully boys, the Teddy Roosevelt’s, the Hemingways, the Ruarks. They are merely slightly more sophisticated versions of the New Jersey file clerks who swarm into the Adirondacks in the fall, in red cap, beard stubble and taut hero’s grin, talking out of the side of their mouths, exuding fumes of bourbon, come to slay the ferocious white-tailed deer. It is the search for balls. A man should have one chance to bring something down. He should have his shot at something, a shining running something, and see it come a-tumbling down, all mucus and steaming blood stench and gouted excrement, the eyes going dull during the final muscle spasms. And if he is, in all parts and purposes, a man, he will file that away as a part of his process of growth and life and eventual death. And if he is perpetually, hopelessly a boy, he will lust to go do it again, with a bigger beast. "

― John D. MacDonald , A Deadly Shade of Gold (Travis McGee #5)

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

― John D. MacDonald , The Green Ripper (Travis McGee #18)

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

― John D. MacDonald , The Deep Blue Good-By (Travis McGee, #1)

17 " 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 , Dress Her in Indigo (Travis McGee #11)

18 " 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 , The Quick Red Fox (Travis McGee #4)

19 " It is that flavor exuded by women who have fashioned an earthy and simplified sexual adjustment to their environment, borne their young, achieved an unthinking physical confidence. They are often placidly unkempt, even grubby, taking no interest in the niceties of posture. They have a slow relish for the physical spectrum of food, sun, deep sleep, the needs of children, the caressess of affection. There is a tiny magnificance about them, like the sultry dignity of she-lions. "

― John D. MacDonald , The Deep Blue Good-By (Travis McGee, #1)

20 " [Los Angeles] the world's biggest third-class city... "

― John D. MacDonald , A Deadly Shade of Gold (Travis McGee #5)