Quotes from John D. MacDonald

People have their acquired armor, made up of gestures and expressions and defensive chatter.

I went back to Lois. She had a glass of bourbon that looked like a glass of iced coffee. Her smile was loose and wet and her eyes didn't track.

Chook's phone went to nine rings before she answered in the gritty rancor of interrupted sleep. But her voice changed when she recognized mine. "Trav! I phoned you last night. Who is that Mrs. Atkinson?

Who are you? What do you want? Who are you?" Her voice was light and fast and intense and her mouth trembled. She seemed to be on the narrow edge of emotional disaster, holding herself in check with the greatest effort. And about her was a rich and heavy scent of brandy, and an unsteadiness, the eyes too swift and not exactly in focus.

She was styled for abundant lactation, and her uniform blouse was not.

The ones that swear off, most of them they go back onto it sooner or later, get pig drunk and locked up." "Something special you've got against drunks, Sheriff?" "Married to one for a long time. Too long. She finally drove into a tree one night.

the glue that seems to hold mankind in some kind of lasting stasis is everyone's desire to be useful.

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." These

I heard his hasty footsteps on the dock. I kept my head down. I heard the thump and felt it as he leaped down into the cockpit. I heard his grunt of consternation. He would have to find out, and find out quickly.

He was back at me like a cat, and he swung a hard chunk of wood from one of the smashed chairs. I caught the first one on the shoulder and I cleverly caught the next one right over the left ear. It broke a big white bell in my head, and he side-stepped, grunting for breath, and let me go down. I landed on my side, and he punted me in the belly like Groza trying for one from the mid-field stripe.

In spite of the air conditioning, she had filled the lounge with a faint sharp-sweet odor of large overheated girl.

She trudged along, dutiful as a naughty child.

The structure looked as though a pagoda had been mated with Mount Vernon, then boarded up and used as a proving ground for neon tubes.

If caught, he would feel fury and indignation at the game ending too soon.

I don't like it anymore around here, Meyer. I want to go home. Every time I get blown up by a bomb I get that same feeling. I want to go home.

You did very well, old friend. Shall I blush and simper? If you don't keep it up for long. I hate blushing and simpering in a grown man when it goes on and on.

There had been a slight flavor of childishness in her outbursts, a little of petulance, but it was mostly a mature woman in that special area of pain reserved, in irony, for those who know how to give.

Guilt is the most merciless disease of man. It stains all the other areas of living. It darkens all skies.

He's such a male little male.

It was a profession that fed on gossip.

Education is something which should be apart from the necessities of earning a living, not a tool therefor.

Soon we will all eat stones.

answer. It sounded too damned close.

People are very good at things they are very interested in.