Quotes from James M. Cain

That's all it takes, one drop of fear, to curdle love into hate.

There was something unnatural, a little unhealthy, about the way she inhaled Veda's smell as she dedicated the rest of her life to this child who had been spared.

Mildred sat quite still, and when she heard Veda drive off she was consumed by a fury so cold that it almost seemed as though she felt nothing at all. It didn't occur to her that she was acting less like a mother than like a lover who had unexpectedly discovered an act of faithlessness, and avenged it.

Stealing a man's wife, that's nothing, but stealing his car, that's larceny.

The hand that holds the money cracks the whip.

I write of the wish that comes true - for some reason, a terrifying concept.

I make no conscious effort to be tough, or hard-boiled, or grim, or any of the things I am usually called.

A gun is like breath to a drowning man--it has to be drawn in haste.

if he can write a book at all, a writer cannot do it by peeping over his shoulder at somebody else, any more than a woman can have a baby by watching some other woman have one. It is a genital process, and all of its stages are intra-abdominal;

Under those blue pajamas was a shape to set a man nuts . . . .

By nine, Mildred was powdered, puffed, perfumed, and patted to that state of semi-transparency that a woman seems to achieve when she is really dressed to go out.

When Mildred went to bed her stomach hurt from laughter, her heart ached from happiness. Then she remembered that while Veda had kissed her, that first moment when she had entered the house, she still hadn't kissed Veda. She tiptoed into the room she had hoped Veda would occupy, knelt beside the bed as she had knelt so many times in Glendale, took the lovely creature in her arms and kissed her, hard, on the mouth.

Veda began it, but when she finished it, or whether she finished it, Mildred never quite knew. Little quivers went through her and they kept going through her the rest of the night, during the supper party, when Veda sat with the white scarf wound around her throat, during the brief half hour, while she undressed Veda, and put the costume away; in the dark, while she lay there alone, trying to sleep, not wanting to sleep. This was the climax of Mildred's life.

As I say, they don't teach it at the academy, but you learn it on the job: not every man's death is a crime.

Just you and me and the road. Just a couple of tramps, just a couple of gypsies, that's it, but we'll be together.

Up close, she could see the sharp, cold, look that she constantly shot at Mr. Treviso, particularly when there was a break, and she was waiting to come in. It shattered illusion for Mildred. She preferred to remain at a distance, to enjoy this child as she seemed, rather than as she was.

She has something in her that I thought I had, and now I find I haven't. Pride, or whatever it is. Nothing on earth could make Veda do what I'm going to do.

Not so fast, baby – let us pause and examine that idea. Why would he want to take you out? Why do they ever want to take us out? As a compliment to us, say they. To show us a good time, to prove the high regard they have for us. They're a pack of goddam liars. In addition to being dirty bastards, and very dumb clucks, they are also goddam liars. There's practically nothing can be said in favour of them, except they're the only ones we've got.

piece of cardboard on which was written, in his Mediterranean handwriting, the

He was enthusiastic about everything, but when she came in with the pie he grew positively lyrical.

Restaurant, hey. That's what I've got. Whole goddam country lives selling hot dogs to each other.

He might be asleep, but even asleep he looked like he knew more than most guys awake

Suppose you did get a job as a saleswoman? What would you get for it? No matter how they figure it up, when you're selling goods you get paid on commission, because it stands to reason if you weren't making commission they wouldn't pay you. But who's buying any goods? You'd have just stood around some store, all day long, waiting for the chance to make a living, and not making it. People eat, though, even now. You'll have something coming in.

You damned, silly-looking cluck, are you trying to drive me insane? Ã¢â'¬Â¦ Yes, I could write music. I can write you a motet, or a sonata, or a waltz, or a cornet solo, with variation—anything at all, anything you want. And not one note of it will be worth the match it would take to burn it. You think I'm hot stuff, don't you? You, lying there every day, dreaming about rainbows.