The Lonely Silver Rain Quotes

“At times it seems as if arranging to have no commitment of any kind to anyone would be a special freedom. But in fact the whole idea works in reverse. The most deadly commitment of all is to be committed only to one's self. Some come to realize this after they are in the nursing home.”
― John D. MacDonald, The Lonely Silver Rain

“When you look at pictures of people you know are dead, there is something different about the eyes. As if they anticipated their particular fate.It is a visceral recognition. I told myself I was getting too fanciful and went to bed.”
― John D. MacDonald, The Lonely Silver Rain

“It is one thing to look at a mistreated boat and another to look at a tomb. The silence of the bay seemed more intense. And I could see the glint of the carrion flies.”
― John D. MacDonald, The Lonely Silver Rain

“For perhaps the first time in my life I appreciated the corrosive effects of total uncertainty.”
― John D. MacDonald, The Lonely Silver Rain

“the glue that seems to hold mankind in some kind of lasting stasis is everyone’s desire to be useful.”
― John D. MacDonald, The Lonely Silver Rain

“Somebody has to be tireless, or the fast-buck operators would asphalt the entire coast, fill every bay, and slay every living thing incapable of carrying a wallet.”
― John D. MacDonald, The Lonely Silver Rain

“cramp began to knot my right calf and so with thumb and forefinger I pinched my nose shut with considerable force and held the pressure until the cramp faded away. A Chinese solution. Acupressure, just as steady pressure at the right point on the inside of the wrist, three finger widths from the heel of the hand, will inhibit nausea.”
― John D. MacDonald, The Lonely Silver Rain

“10 OCTOBER 2013”
― John D. MacDonald, The Lonely Silver Rain

“Without my realizing it, it had happened so slowly, I had moved a generation away from the beach people. To them I had become a sun-brown rough-looking fellow of an indeterminate age who did not quite understand their dialect, did not share their habits—either sexual or pharmacological—who thought their music unmusical, their lyrics banal and repetitive, a square fellow who read books and wore yesterday's clothes. But the worst realization was that they bore me. The laughing, clean-limbed lovely young girls were as bright, functional, and vapid as cereal boxes. And their young men—all hair and lethargy—were so laid back as to have become immobile.”
― John D. MacDonald, The Lonely Silver Rain