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

• Previous
• Next

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

• If someone's got a fear of heights, they'd probably say, well, hanging off a helicopter at 3,000 feet above downtown L.A. would be the scariest. For me, that's a day's work, something I was very happy to do.

  

  Jason Statham
  • Work
  • Happy
  • Fear

• Our greatest fear should not be of failure but of succeeding at things in life that don't really matter.

  

  Francis Chan
  • Fear
  • Failure
  • Matter

• You can’t say A is made of B or vice versa. All mass is interaction.

  

  Richard Feynman
  • Vices
  • Interaction

• I had the erroneous conviction that all of history tended toward my birth and would diminish into chaos or inconsequence after I was gone. When you realize that's not so, the proper humility is to defer.

  

  David Milch
  • History
  • Humility
  • Chaos

• I felt so full of gratitude and humility that I clasped my hands in front of me, closed my eyes and said a silent prayer of thanks to God... I had at last achieved something I'd wanted for so long... My insides bubbled with happiness. It was a dream come true.

  

  Cathy Freeman
  • Dream
  • Sports
  • Eye

• 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