“A gun makes a loud and satisfying noise in a moment of passion and requires no agility and very little strength. How many murders wouldn't happen, if they all had to use hammers and knives?”

— John D. MacDonald

Travis McGee series, The Scarlet Ruse (1973)
Context: Way over half the murders committed in this country are by close friends or relatives of the deceased. A gun makes a loud and satisfying noise in a moment of passion and requires no agility and very little strength. How many murders wouldn't happen, if they all had to use hammers and knives?

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "A gun makes a loud and satisfying noise in a moment of passion and requires no agility and very little strength. How ma…" by John D. MacDonald?

John D. MacDonald 39

writer from the United States 1916–1986

Related quotes

“I am often accused of interfering in the private lives of citizens. Yes, if I did not, had I not done that, we wouldn't be here today. And I say without the slightest remorse, that we wouldn't be here, we would not have made economic progress, if we had not intervened on very personal matters - who your neighbour is, how you live, the noise you make, how you spit, or what language you use. We decide what is right. Never mind what the people think.”

Lee Kuan Yew (1923–2015) First Prime Minister of Singapore

Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, Straits Times, 20 April 1987
1980s

“Strength without agility is a mere mass.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Ibid.
The Book of Disquiet
Original: A força sem a destreza é uma simples massa.

“Nobody's life is filled with perfect little moments. And if it were, they wouldn't be perfect little moments. They would just be normal. How would you ever know happiness if you never experience downs?”

Cecelia Ahern (1981) Irish novelist

Variant: Nobody's life is filled with perfect little moments. And if it were they wouldn't be perfect little moments. They would just be normal. ow would you know happiness if you never experienced downs?
Source: P.S. I Love You

“Melt all the guns, I thought, break the knives, burn the guillotines-and the malicious will still write letters that kill.”

Ray Bradbury book Death Is a Lonely Business

Source: Death Is a Lonely Business

“I often observed to my brother, You see now how little nature requires to be satisfied. Felicity, the companion of content, is rather found in our own breasts than in the enjoyment of external things; And I firmly believe it requires but a little philosophy to make a man happy in whatsoever state he is.”

Daniel Boone (1734–1820) American settler

As quoted in "The Adventures of Col. Daniel Boon; containing a Narrative of the Wars of Kentucke" in The Discovery, Settlement And present State of Kentucke (1784) by John Filson
Context: Situated, many hundred miles from our families in the howling wilderness, I believe few would have equally enjoyed the happiness we experienced. I often observed to my brother, You see now how little nature requires to be satisfied. Felicity, the companion of content, is rather found in our own breasts than in the enjoyment of external things; And I firmly believe it requires but a little philosophy to make a man happy in whatsoever state he is. This consists in a full resignation to the will of Providence; and a resigned soul finds pleasure in a path strewed with briars and thorns.

“Secrets with girls, like loaded guns with boys,
Are never valued till they make a noise.”

George Crabbe (1754–1832) English poet, surgeon, and clergyman

"The Maid's Story", line 84 (1819).
Tales of the Hall (1819)

“Tenderly Kala nursed her little waif, wondering silently why it did not gain strength and agility as did the little apes of other mothers. It was nearly a year from the time the little fellow came into her possession before he would walk alone, and as for climbing — my, but how stupid he was!”

Edgar Rice Burroughs book Tarzan of the Apes

Source: Tarzan of the Apes (1912), Ch. 5 : The White Ape

“Because half-a-dozen grasshoppers under a fern make the field ring with their importunate chink, whilst thousands of great cattle, reposed beneath the shadow of the British oak, chew the cud and are silent, pray do not imagine that those who make the noise are the only inhabitants of the field; that of course they are many in number; or that, after all, they are other than the little shrivelled, meagre, hopping, though loud and troublesome insects of the hour.”

Edmund Burke book Reflections on the Revolution in France

Volume iii, p. 344
Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)

“I’ve had so many knives stuck into me, when they hand me a flower I can’t quite make out what it is. It takes time.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

“If I had a hammer,
I'd hammer in the morning
I'd hammer in the evening,
All over this land.”

Pete Seeger (1919–2014) American folk singer

"If I Had A Hammer" (1949) Though Seeger composed the music of this song the lyrics were actually written by fellow member of The Weavers, Lee Hays.
Misattributed
Context: If I had a hammer,
I'd hammer in the morning
I'd hammer in the evening,
All over this land.
I'd hammer out danger,
I'd hammer out a warning,
I'd hammer out love between my brothers and my sisters,
All over this land...
Well I got a hammer,
And I got a bell,
And I got a song to sing, all over this land.
It's the hammer of Justice,
It's the bell of Freedom,
It's the song about Love between my brothers and my sisters,
All over this land.

“A gun makes a loud and satisfying noise in a moment of passion and requires no agility and very little strength. How many murders wouldn't happen, if they all had to use hammers and knives?”

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

John D. MacDonald 39

Related quotes

Related topics