John D. MacDonald Quotes

Any man who outgrows the myths of childhood is ninety-nine percent aware and convinced of his own mortality. But then comes the chilly breath on the nape of the neck, a stirring of the air by the wings of the bleak angel. When a man becomes one hundred percent certain of his inevitable death, he gets The Look.

John D. MacDonald

• Death
• Air
• Childhood
• Angel

• Previous
• Next

Quotes to Explore

• The approach of death certainly concentrates the mind.

  

  A. N. Wilson
  • Mind
  • Death
  • Approach

• With the death of bin Laden, it's finally time for Congress to bring back the pre-9-11 legal norm, before we decided it was okay to toss out our civil liberties if the 'bad guys' were scary enough.

  

  Aaron Swartz
  • Time
  • Bad
  • Death

• After I was assaulted in Egypt, I learned fear. I've just never been so scared in my life. I've never been so close to death.

  

  Lara Logan
  • Life
  • Death
  • Fear

• This opinion, however, is held by most, that the devil was an angel, and that, having become an apostate, he induced as many of the angels as possible to fall away with himself, and these up to the present time are called his angels.

  

  Origen
  • Up
  • Time
  • Fall

• Since Kennedy's death, the nation has not seen, in any of his successors, his cosmopolitan intellectualism or the oratorical eloquence with which he sought to lead the nation by the power of his words.

  

  Vincent Bugliosi
  • Power
  • Death
  • Words

• My deceased patients have taught me over the years to believe in the glass half full, to make good use of the time we have, to be generous - that was their lesson for the Uber-mind, and it was free. 'Do that,' they said, 'and then perhaps death shall have no dominion.'

  

  Abraham Verghese
  • Time
  • Good
  • Believe

• The air of the English is down-to-earth. They care about details; there's a tradition, but there's also a counter-culture: the younger generation versus the older generation and so on. But then that's well blended into a happy balance and crystallised into common sense.

  

  Tadashi Yanai
  • Happy
  • Culture
  • Earth

• Books are like a mirror. If an ass looks in, you can't expect an angel to look out.

  

  B. C. Forbes
  • Look
  • Mirror
  • Angel

• Spontaneity, the hallmark of childhood, is well worth cultivating to counteract the rigidity that may otherwise set in as we grow older.

  

  Gail Sheehy
  • May
  • Childhood
  • Grow

• I saw a lot of haute couture all my childhood, and without knowing it I've learned from when I was a child to recognise beautiful fabrics.

  

  Ines de La Fressange
  • Beautiful
  • Childhood
  • Child

• Am I a trance medium? No. Have I got a gift psychically? Absolutely not. But I believe in the survival of consciousness after death.

  

  Dan Aykroyd
  • Believe
  • Death
  • Survival

• In the 'Angel' days, all there was was a community that was like a chat room. If you were looking for feedback, you had to look for it.

  

  J. August Richards
  • Community
  • Angel
  • Feedback

• I missed out on my childhood. I had to work hard, but I was immediately given a place in playback.

  

  Lata Mangeshkar
  • Work
  • Childhood
  • Work Hard

• My whole career has been fulfilling my childhood fantasies, playing characters that are larger than life, getting to play a knight, an elf, a prince, and a soldier.

  

  Orlando Bloom
  • Life
  • Career
  • Play

• Nearly all Americans felt they knew JFK intimately, his charm and wit regularly lighting up the television screen at home. This is why polls showed that millions of Americans took his assassination like a 'death in the family.'

  

  Vincent Bugliosi
  • Up
  • Family
  • Why

• Personally, I would be delighted if there were a life after death, especially if it permitted me to continue to learn about this world and others, if it gave me a chance to discover how history turns out.

  

  Carl Sagan
  • Life
  • World
  • History

• My all-time low is 62 at Bel-Air, but it was in match play, and I had two putts given to me from four feet. I'm playing only about once or twice a month. Full-time job. Full-time father. Full-time blonde.

  

  Jack Wagner
  • Time
  • Job
  • Father

• I had a really lovely childhood, but I wasn't the easiest kid to live with.

  

  Rachel Keller
  • Live
  • Childhood
  • Kid

• People actually aren't moving on from companies much more quickly than in the past, but there's a perception that they do, so companies are investing less in talent on the assumption that young employees won't stay long.

  

  Kathryn Minshew
  • People
  • Long
  • Past

• In some of the middle colonies the towns and counties were both active and had a relation with each other which was the forerunner of the present system of local government in the Western States.

  

  Albert Bushnell Hart
  • Present

• While rising delinquencies and foreclosures will continue to weigh heavily on the housing market this year, it will not cripple the U.S.

  

  Ben Bernanke
  • Market
  • U.S.
  • Foreclosures

• All men are not slimy warthogs. Some men are silly giraffes, some woebegone puppies, some insecure frogs. But if one is not careful, those slimy warthogs can ruin it for all the others.

  

  Cynthia Heimel
  • Men
  • Silly

• Any man who outgrows the myths of childhood is ninety-nine percent aware and convinced of his own mortality. But then comes the chilly breath on the nape of the neck, a stirring of the air by the wings of the bleak angel. When a man becomes one hundred percent certain of his inevitable death, he gets The Look.

  

  John D. MacDonald
  • Death
  • Air
  • Childhood