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Link	Quote	Stars	Tags	Author
d228cbf	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.		work-ethic thoroughness	John D. MacDonald
1165c00	We were about to give up and call it a night when somebody threw the girl off the bridge.		great-opening-lines mystery	John D. MacDonald
751314f	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..		killing masculinity manhood	John D. MacDonald
dc6e08a	Being an adult means accepting those situations where no action is possible.			John D. MacDonald
8d5c112	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.		routine structure society	John D. MacDonald
8f62cc6	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
3da477e	A woman who does not guard and treasure herself cannot be of very much value to anyone else.		woman treasure value	John D. MacDonald
c870548	A man with a credit card is in hock to his own image of himself.			John D. MacDonald
623577a	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 ..			John D. MacDonald
bc2dd88	Please not yet. Those are the three eternal words. Please not yet.			John D. MacDonald
edf8c1a	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
2c8b8e5	When you see the ugliness behind the tears of another person, it makes you take a closer look at your own.		ugliness tears	John D. MacDonald
bdd9ffa	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, li..			John D. MacDonald
dc7e032	Los Angeles] the world's biggest third-class city...			John D. MacDonald
d2bee3c	By noon, in a gray February world, we had come down through snow flurries to land at Albany, and had taken off again. When the snow ended the sky was a luminous gray. I looked down at the winter calligraphy of upstate New York, white fields marked off by the black woodlots, an etching without color, superbly restful in contrast to the smoky, guttering, grinding stink of the airplane clattering across the sky like an old commuter bus.		observational	John D. MacDonald
fd2acd7	Every day, no matter how you fight it, you learn a little more about yourself, and all most of it does is teach humility.			John D. MacDonald
de62a66	In the morning I'm often anti-semantic.			John D. MacDonald
3f08886	I do not function too well on emotional motivations. I am wary of them. And I am wary of a lot of other things, such as plastic credit cards, payroll deductions, insurance programs, retirement benefits, savings accounts, Green Stamps, time clocks, newspapers, mortgages, sermons, miracle fabrics, deodorants, check lists, time payments, political parties, lending libraries, television, actresses, junior chambers of commerce, pageants, progres..		mortgages sermons wary newspapers	John D. MacDonald
b6ba434	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
2c8a35b	The president is selling the country down the river with the help of the Supreme Court. Agree with us or you are a marked traitor. You know the sort of thing, all that tiresome pea-brained nonsense that attracts those people who are so dim-witted that the only way they can understand the world is to believe that it is all some kind of conspiracy.			John D. MacDonald
f5334d4	Bugs would eat the wax. Chaw the old canvas. And one day there will be a mutation, and we will have new ones that can digest concrete, dissolve steel and suck up the acid puddles, fatten on magic plastics, lick their slow way through glass. Then the cities will tumble and man will be chased back into the sea from which he came...			John D. MacDonald
a19aab7	How old is she now?" "Oh, she's twenty now." She hesitated. She was obligated to end our little chat with a stylized flourish. The way it's done in serial television. So she wet her little bunny mouth, sleepied her eyes, widened her nostrils, patted her hair, arched her back, stood canted and hip-shot, huskied her voice and said, "See you aroun', huh?" "Sure, Marianne. Sure." Bless them all, the forlorn little rabbits. They are the displace..			John D. MacDonald
d8d10d2	Now, of course, having failed in every attempt to subdue the Glades by frontal attack, we are slowly killing it off by tapping the River of Grass. In the questionable name of progress, the state in its vast wisdom lets every two-bit developer divert the flow into drag-lined canals that give him 'waterfront' lots to sell. As far north as Corkscrew Swamp, virgin stands of ancient bald cypress are dying. All the area north of Copeland had been..			John D. MacDonald
7f8bc60	It would be one kind of penance. And there are never enough kinds. Not for him. Not for me. And certainly not for you, my friend.			John D. MacDonald
fd5c948	It was to have been a quiet evening at home. Home is the Busted Flush, 52-foot barge-type houseboat, Slip F-18, Bahia Mar, Lauderdale.			John D. MacDonald
67dbe32	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.		death	John D. MacDonald
f011bc6	You're so bright, Trav, and so intuitive about people. And you have ... the gift of tenderness. And sympathy. You could be almost anything." "Of course!" I said, springing to my feet and beginning to pace back and forth through the lounge. "Why didn't I think of that! Here I am, wasting the golden years on this lousy barge, getting all mixed up with lame-duck women when I could be out there seeking and striving. Who am I to keep from puttin..			John D. MacDonald
3118984	If there was one sunset every twenty years, how would people react to them? If there were ten seashells in all the world, what would they be worth? If people could make love just once a year, how carefully would they pick their mates?			John D. MacDonald
fe60825	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 ti..			John D. MacDonald
ae367fd	summertime." "I remember it well."			John D. MacDonald
6f3c380	All the little gods of irony must whoop and weep and roll on the floors of Olympus when they tune in on the night thoughts of a truly fatuous male.			John D. MacDonald
bc28aa7	In the sense of movement a boat is a living thing.			John D. MacDonald
1968e29	That is the flaw in my personality. Vanity. And your flaw is sentimentality. They are the flaws which will inevitably kill us both.			John D. MacDonald
9d04169	Somebody has to be tireless or the fast buck operators would asphalt the entire coast, fill every bay and slay every living thing incapable of carrying a wallet.			John D. MacDonald
973dbae	Waves can wash away the most stubborn stains, and the stars do not care one way or the other.			John D. MacDonald
999dddc	The wide world is full of likable people who get kicked in the stomach regularly. They're disaster-prone. Something goes wrong. The sky starts falling on their head. And you can't reverse the process.			John D. MacDonald
2bcde23	He'd had a full measure of good bourbon and a fine dinner and probably some excellent brandy. It had dulled his mind slightly, and he was aware of that dullness and was consequently more careful and more suspicious than he would have been sober. He refused a drink. He lowered himself into a comfortable chair and took his time lighting his pipe.			John D. MacDonald
b2e5d7c	I could see, in the haze to the north, the tall stacks of the mighty Borden phosphate and fertilizer plant in Bradenton, spewing lethal fluorine and sulphuric-acid components into the vacation sky. In the immediate area it is known bitterly as the place where Elsie the Cow coughed herself to death. I have read where it had been given yet another two years to correct its massive and dangerous pollution. Big Borden must have directors somewhe..		pollution	John D. MacDonald
13f16fe	Newsmen have a very short attention span. It is a prerequisite in the business. That is why the news accounts of almost anything make sense to all ages up to the age of twelve. If one wishes to enjoy newspapers, it is wise to halt all intellectual development right at that age. The schools are doing their level best to achieve this goal.			John D. MacDonald
bf2d08b	throats in a dreadful silence. The infection will spread outward from that point. Old ladies will crack skulls with their deadly handbags. Cars will plunge down the crowded sidewalks. Drivers will be torn out of their cars and stomped. It will spread to all the huge cities of the world, and by dawn of the next day there will be a horrid silence of sprawled bodies and tumbled vehicles, gutted buildings and a few wisps of smoke. And through t..			John D. MacDonald
984b477	My friend Meyer, the economist, says that cretins are the only humans who can be absolutely certain of their own sanity. All the rest of us go rocketing along rickety rails over spavined bridges and along the edge of bottomless gorges. The man who believes himself free of any taint of madness is a damned liar.			John D. MacDonald
0d845a3	The world is full of damp rocks, with some very strange creatures hiding under them.			John D. MacDonald
0c375d5	I know just enough about myself to know I cannot settle for one of those simplifications which indignant people seize upon to make understandable a world too complex for their comprehension. Astrology, health food, flag waving, bible thumping, Zen, nudism, nihilism--all of these are grotesque simplifications which small dreary people adopt in the hope of thereby finding The Answer, because the very concept that maybe there is no answer, nev..			John D. MacDonald
370cb3a	Then she would be that hostess in Houston and I would be that tanned one from Florida, a small memory of chlorinated pool water, fruit juice and gin, steak raw in the middle, and hearty rhythms in the draperied twilight of the tomb-cool motel cubicle, riding the grounded flesh of the jet-stream Valkyrie. A harmless pleasure. For harmless plastic people, scruff-proof, who can create the delusion of romance.			John D. MacDonald

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