Quotes from James M. Cain

Didn't you go back? I wouldn't give them the satisfaction.

We had all that love, and we just cracked up under it. It's a big airplane engine, that takes you through the sky, right up to the top of the mountain. But when you put it in a Ford, it just shakes it to pieces. That's what we are, Frank, a couple of Fords. God is up there laughing at us.

The water, the surf, the colors on the shore. You think they make the beauty of the tropical sea, aye, lad? They do not. 'Tis the knowledge of what lurks below the surface of it, that awful-looking thing, as you call it, that carries death with every move that it makes. So it is, so it is with all beauty.

Sarebbe difficile definire esattamente i piani di Mildred. Mildred era femmina in tutto e per tutto e la caratteristica di una mente femminile è che si comporta nella direttiva come una nave cui sia possibile virare di bordo all'infinito. Ogni virata si risolve in un vago angolo, eppure, inesorabilmente, tutta la manovra conduce l'imbarcazione in porto.

Don't wash family linen in public, or with anyone except family.

She preferred to remain at a distance, to enjoy this child as she seemed, rather than as she was.

Ain't that funny? You fall for a guy because he's smart and then you find out he's smart.

Walter, the time has come. What do you mean, Phyllis? For me to meet my bridegroom. The only one I ever loved. One night I'll drop off the stern of the ship. Then, little by little I'll feel his icy fingers creeping into my heart. ...I'll give you away. What? I mean: I'll go with you.

People are sold over this desk just like cattle in the Chicago yards, and for exactly the same reason: they've got the points the buyer wants. All right, now take a look at something that does concern you. See those greens? That means 'No Married Women.

And then at last I began to realize how terrible a thing it was, the dream that you make come true.

Presently Ray was panting like a little dog, and her whimpering had a pitiful note in it that made Mildred want to cry out against the injustice that one so small, so helpless, should have to bear such agony. But she sat perfectly still, not distracting by so much as a movement the attention of those on whom Ray's chance depended.

Me gustaría aceptar, se lo confieso. No me importa que esté mal visto, pero no puedo: es por los gatos. —¿Los gatos? —Sí. Tenemos muchos, y yo los cuido. Por eso tenía que volver a casa cuanto antes.

When she got home, Bert came out to meet her, and took her into the den, where Letty was trying to quiet Veda. Letty went back to the kitchen, and Veda broke into loud sobs. Over and over, she kept saying: "I owed her a nickel! Oh, Mother, I cheated her out of it, and I meant to pay it back, but—I owed her a nickel!

Dr. Aldous was Bert's rector, and for a miserable moment Mildred felt ashamed that she could claim no rector as her own. As a child she had gone to the Methodist Sunday school, but then her mother had begun to shop around, and finally wound up with the astrologers who had named Veda and Ray. Astrologers, she reflected unhappily, didn't quite seem to fill the bill at this particular time.

I caught his eye running over my clothes once more, and I thought perhaps over what was beneath my clothes as well, and

There are some foods some people just don't like. I just don't like movies. People tell me, don't you care what they've done to your book? I tell them, they haven't done anything to my book. It's right there on the shelf.

at least to live wit them and like it. Maybe a wife can have cross eyes or buck teeth; but she can't have a past.

If you can't write like New York, you have no business living in New York and making New York the locale of your stories.

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