John D. MacDonald Quotes

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

• Humility

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Quotes to Explore

• I enjoy privacy. I think it's nice to have a little mystery. I think because of technology a lot of the mystery is gone in life, and I'd like to preserve some of that.

  

  Maggie Q
  • Life
  • Nice
  • Technology

• After the atomic bombs were dropped, the war ended and we went into Tokyo Bay with the rest of the fleet, the Missouri and the rest of them, while they signed the terms of surrender that ended the war.

  

  Barney Ross
  • War
  • Rest
  • Surrender

• I don't know anyone on Wall Street who goes to work every day thinking of anything but how to increase their bonus.

  

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb
  • Work
  • Thinking
  • Day

• On the whole, I am on the side of the unregenerate who affirms the worth of life as an end in itself, as against the saints who deny it.

  

  Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
  • Life
  • Worth
  • Saints

• I'm a black Catholic raised in Decatur, Georgia, which was very gang-infested. Then, I went to an all-white private high school and excelled in sports and wrote poetry, then played football at the University of Georgia, minoring in drama.

  

  Omari Hardwick
  • School
  • High
  • Black

• I love performing in front of an audience. I like the questions; I like controversy.

  

  T. C. Boyle
  • Love
  • Like
  • Questions

• If left unchecked, global change will create violent conflict, torrential storms, shrinking coastlines, and irreversible catastrophe.

  

  Valerie Jarrett
  • Change
  • Conflict
  • Global

• I've always had a problem with conventional punctuation of dialogue because it does seem to me to set it off too much from the narrative. I mean, in life, things don't stop while somebody says something, and then stuff starts up again; it's all happening at once.

  

  Kate Grenville
  • Life
  • Stop
  • Problem

• I've always wondered why there isn't a great French novel about the German occupation. The nouveau roman authors weren't interested in telling that sort of thing.

  

  Manuel Puig
  • Great
  • Why
  • Always

• Ideas are cheap and easy, and there are a lot of them.

  

  Sam Altman
  • Ideas
  • Easy
  • Cheap

• I always have to have a six pack or twelve pack of Entenmann's doughnuts in my house, no other brand.

  

  Victor Cruz
  • House
  • Always
  • Brand

• Ratings don't last. Good journalism does.

  

  Dan Rather
  • Good
  • Journalism
  • Last

• No one is ever ordinary.

  

  Tanith Lee
  • Ordinary
  • Ever

• I did not set out to be a poster child for anything. I saw a mountain. I wanted to climb it.

  

  Raha Moharrak
  • Child
  • Mountain
  • Climb

• Am I bossy? Absolutely. I don't like to lose, and if I'm told 'no,' then I find another way to get my 'yes.' But I'm a loyal person.

  

  Naomi Campbell
  • Way
  • Find
  • Lose

• I want to prove that you don't have to come from Oxford University or Rada - and you don't have to have parents that support you - to succeed.

  

  Samantha Morton
  • Want
  • Parents
  • Support

• To feel most beautifully alive means to be reading something beautiful, ready always to apprehend in the flow of language the sudden flash of poetry.

  

  Gaston Bachelard
  • Beautiful
  • Reading
  • Poetry

• Now hollow fires burn out to black,And lights are guttering low:Square your shoulders, lift your pack,And leave your friends and go.Oh never fear, man, nought's to dread,Look not to left nor right:In all the endless road you treadThere's nothing but the night.

  

  A. E. Housman
  • Friends
  • Night
  • Black

• The capacity to be either happy or unhappy is determined by the manner in which you react to whatever happens.

  

  Norman Vincent Peale
  • Happy
  • Capacity
  • Unhappy

• I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

  

  Steve Jobs
  • Life
  • Apple
  • Creative periods

• I never leave the writer behind, because you rewrite the movie in post, or at least I do. I always do, and I feel like anybody who doesn't at least explore that possibility is short-changing themselves. Editing is the most fun and most exciting part of the process.

  

  Steven Soderbergh
  • Movie
  • Possibility
  • Rewrite

• There is no gardening without humility

  

  Alfred Austin
  • Humility
  • Gardening

• We must shift our allegiances from fear to curiosity, from attachment to letting go, from control to trust, and from entitlement to humility.

  

  Angeles Arrien
  • Fear
  • Humility
  • Shift

• 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
  • Humility