The Quick Red Fox (Travis McGee #4)

by John D. MacDonald

The enticing woman who is not in the industry will have five or six faces to wear. One like this would have dozens, and this was the one she had momentarily selected for me.

A man likes the illusion of exclusive option, even on the most temporary basis, I guess.

Bed is the simplest thing two people can do. If it goes with a lot of other things, it can be important, and if it goes with nothing else, it isn’t worth the time it takes.”

I guess it can be touching. A special kind of trust. Something warm to hold. The way a kitten will drowse in your lap, totally confident.

A person can not endure inexplicable worthlessness. So they establish the pattern of proving themselves worthless.

We can defend ourselves from our enemies, and even from our friends, but never from our family.

Wisdom says the only values are the ones you place on yourself.

I do want the relationship, if it does become intimate, to rest solidly on trust, affection, respect. Not just for taking, or scoring, or using, or proving anything.

With absolutely no fuss at all, she got the maximum service merely by an attitude—smiling and polite—which seemed to make anything less than perfect service unthinkable.

This knack of getting exactly what you want exactly when you want it is something shared by great ladies, royalty and the very best executive secretaries.

Somebody, Hemingway maybe, had a definition of a moral act. It’s something you feel good after.

Violence is the stepchild of desperation.