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It's no good telling somebody they're trying too hard. It's very much like ordering a child to go stand in a corner for a half hour and never once think about elephants.

— John D. MacDonald The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper (1965)

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More quotes by John D. MacDonald

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

A Deadly Shade of Gold (1965)

Any man who outgrows the myths of childhood is ninety-nine percent aware and convinced of his own mortality.

Dress Her in Indigo (1969)

In many ways life is less random than we think.

One Fearful Yellow Eye (1966)

Statistically it is probably the one city in the world where the most people have been killed in arguments over professional athletes.

One Fearful Yellow Eye (1966)

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

A Purple Place for Dying (1964)

All John D. MacDonald quotes →

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: John D. MacDonald (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.