The only thing in the world worth a damn is the strange, touching, pathetic, awesome nobility of the individual human spirit.

- John D. Macdonald

My purpose is to entertain myself first and other people secondly.

- John D. Macdonald

A nonreader is somebody standing there in a blindfold.

- John D. Macdonald

[To] me organized religion, the formalities and routines, [is] like being marched in formation to look at a sunset.

- John D. Macdonald

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 humo…

- John D. Macdonald

If the cards are stacked against you, reshuffle the deck.

- John D. Macdonald

I want story, wit, music, wryness, color, and a sense of reality in what I read, and I try to get it in what I write.

- John D. Macdonald

Night and gin and music-the right setting for peeling off the thin clinging layers of bullshit and finding one's way down closer to the essential sel…

- John D. Macdonald

The dividing line [between friends and acquaintances] is communication, I think. A friend is someone to whom you can say any jackass thing that enter…

- John D. Macdonald