Quotes from Dashiell Hammett

looking at Spade with cobalt-blue eyes that were both shy and probing.

I don't think he even knew he had settled back naturally into the same groove he had jumped out of in Tacoma. 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.

He was apparently as many years past forty as Spade was past thirty.

he was a roly-poly elderly man with a stoop and a waddle—

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.

Strictly speaking, there are no real substitutes for sexual satisfaction.

I haven't any sort of plans for the future but I reckon things will work out in some manner.