Quotes from Dashiell Hammett

The roof might fall in; anything could happen.

You got to look on the bright side, even if there ain't one.

People always say things like, Oh, well, he was suffering so much that he was better off dying. But that's not true. You're always better off living.

That's the part of it I [Sam Spade] always liked. He [Flitcraft] adjusted himself to beams falling, and then no more of them fell, and he adjusted himself to their not falling.

When a man's partner is killed he's supposed to do something about it. It doesn't make any difference what you thought of him. He was your partner and you're supposed to do something about it.

There are four rules for shadowing: Keep behind your subject as much as possible; never try to hide from him; act in a natural manner no matter what happens; and never meet his eye.

He felt like somebody had taken the lid off life and let him look at the works.

The problem with putting two and two together is that sometimes you get four, and sometimes you get twenty-two.

Who shot him? I asked. The grey man scratched the back of his neck and said: Somebody with a gun.

He looked rather pleasantly, like a blonde satan.

You're drunk, and I'm drunk, and I'm just exactly drunk enough to tell you anything you want to know. That's the kind of girl I am. If I like a person, I'll tell them anything they want to know. Just ask me. Go ahead, ask me.

Nora: "How do you feel?" Nick: "Terrible. I must've gone to bed sober.

Joel Cairo: You always have a very smooth explanation ready. Sam Spade: What do you want me to do, learn to stutter?

She grinned at me. 'You got types?' 'Only you darling - lanky brunettes with wicked jaws.

The people who lie the most are nearly always the clumsiest at it, and they're easier to fool with lies than most people, too. You'd think they'd be on the look-out for lies, but they seem to be the very ones that will believe almost anything at all.

We didn't exactly believe your story.' Then --?' 'We believed your two hundred dollars.' 'You mean --' She seemed not to know what he meant. 'I mean that you paid us more than if you'd been telling the truth,' he explained blandly, 'and enough more to make it all right.

I distrust a man that says when. If he's got to be careful not to drink to much it's because he's not to be trusted when he does.

My way of learning is to heave a wild and unpredictable monkey-wrench into the machinery.

I haven't laughed so much over anything since the hogs ate my kid brother.

The face she made at me was probably meant for a smile. Whatever it was, it beat me. I was afraid she'd do it again, so I surrendered

When a man's partner is killed he's supposed to do something about it. It doesn't make any difference what you thought of him. He was your partner and you're supposed to do something about it. Then it happens we were in the detective business. Well, when one of your organization gets killed it's bad business to let the killer get away with it. It's bad all around-bad for that one organization, bad for every detective everywhere. Sam Spade

The cheaper the crook, the gaudier the patter.

He felt like somebody had taken the lid off life and let him see the works.

Play with murder enough and it gets you one of two ways. It makes you sick, or you get to like it.