Quotes from Dashiell Hammett

I said: All right, talk, but do you mind putting the gun away? My wife doesn't care, but I'm pregnant and I don't want the child to be born with...

Yes,' Spade growled. 'And when you're slapped you'll take it and like it.' He released Cairo's wrist and with a thick open hand struck the side of his face three times savagely.

Be still while I get up or I'll make an opening in your head for brains to leak in.

What do you do with all your money? Me and the French hoard gold.

Don't be so damned patronizing. Your performance so far has been a little less than dazzling. I didn't mean no harm, I said and kissed her. That a new dress? Ah! Changing the subject, you coward.

But besides, I haven't the time, I'm too busy trying to see that you don't lose any of the money I married you for.

I first heard Personville called Poisonville by a red-haired mucker named Hickey Dewey in the Big Ship in Butte. He also called his shirt a shoit.

He did not smile. I don't believe in anything, but I'm too much of a gambler not to be affected by a lot of things.

If the Old Man said something was so, then it probably was, because he was one of these cautious babies who'll look out the window at a cloudburst and say, It seems to be raining, on the off-chance that somebody's pouring water off the roof.

She's cute, but she's cuckoo. She wouldn't be his daughter if she wasn't. You can't tell how much of what she says is what she thinks. And you can't tell how much of what she thinks ever really happened.

It's tough, him getting it like that. Miles had his faults same as the rest of us, but I guess he must've had some good points too.

Murder doesn't round out anybody's life except the murdered's and sometimes the murderer's.

But that's the part of it I always liked. He adjusted himself to beams falling, and then no more of them fell, and he adjusted himself to them not falling.

You know Quinn? Macaulay asked me. Ten minutes ago I was putting him to bed. Macaulay grinned. I hope you keep his acquaintance like that - social Meaning what? Macaulay's grin became rueful. He used to be my broker, and his advice led me right up to the poorhouse steps. That's sweet, I said. he's my broker now and I'm following his advice. Macaulay and the girl laughed. I pretended I was laughing and returned to my table.

She laughed. All right, all right. Still want to leave for San Francisco tomorrow? Not unless you're in a hurry. Let's stick around awhile. This excitement has put us behind in our drinking.

I know a man who once stole a Ferris-wheel

Samuel Spade's jaw was long and bony, his chin a jutting v under the more flexible v of his mouth. His nostrils curved back to make another, smaller, v. His yellow-grey eyes were horizontal. The V motif was picked up again by thickish brows rising outward from twin creases above a hooked nose, and his pale brown hair grew down--from high flat temples--in a point on his forehead. He looked rather pleasantly like a blond Satan.

The hell of it, Miss- Is your name Wonderly or Leblanc?' She blushed and murmured: 'It's really O'Shaughnessy - Brigid O'Shaughnessy

You're like everybody else: some people like you, some people don't, and some have no feeling about it one way or the other.

What do you want me to do, learn to stutter?

Gutman smiled benignly at him and said: "Well, Wilmer, I'm sorry indeed to lose you, and I want you to know that I couldn't be any fonder of you if you were my own son; but—well, by Gad!—if you lose a son it's possible to get another—and there's only one Maltese falcon.

You're not going to go around poking at the fire and straightening up the room again, are you?

I said: 'All right, talk, but do you mind putting the gun away? My wife doesn't care, but I'm pregnant.

I said: You don't want to pick a fight with me, Mimi. She looked at me as if she were going to say I love you, and asked: Is that a threat?