Quotes from Raymond Chandler

Hemingway says somewhere that the good writer competes only with the dead.

Take it easy, Doc. Around here we only hit our wives in private.

Wherever I went, whatever I did, this was what I would come back to. A blank wall in a meaningless room in a meaningless house.

Under the thinning fog the surf curled and creamed, almost without sound, like a thought trying to form itself on the edge of consciousness.

On a dance floor half a dozen couples were throwing themselves around with the reckless abandon of a night watchman with arthritis.

Don't kid yourself. You're a dirty low-down detective. Kiss me.

I guess you can snap her garter any time you want to, without much of a struggle. But there's one thing you can be sure of—you're a late comer to the show.

If God were omnipresent and omniscient in any literal sense, he wouldn't have bothered to make the universe at all. There is no success where there is no possibility of failure, no art without the resistance of the medium.

An alcoholic, a real alcoholic, is not the same man at all. You can't predict anything about him for sure except that he will be someone you never met before. Light

Uh-huh. Could be,' I said. It was a spot for a paragraph of lucid prose. Henry Clarendon IV would have obliged. I didn't have a damn thing more to say.

I called him up from a phone booth. The voice that answered was fat. It wheezed softly, like the voice of a man who had just won a pie-eating contest.

Gano muchísima pasta. Tengo que ganar muchísima pasta para untar a los tipos a los que tengo que untar para ganar muchísima pasta y untar así a los tipos que tengo que untar.

It's so hard for women – even nice women – to realize that their bodies are not irresistible.

Dead men are heavier than broken hearts. It

You're a full portion of what I don't like,' she said. 'Get out of my way.' I didn't move. She didn't move. We were both sitting down – and not even close to each other.

You were lucky about that gun. All the people we know have been playing with it, wiping prints off and putting them on. I even put a set on myself just to be fashionable.

How can such a hard man be so gentle? she asked wonderingly. If I wasn't hard, I wouldn't be alive. If I couldn't ever be gentle, I wouldn't deserve to be alive.

the colour of her hair was dusky red, like a fire under control but still dangerous.

I was neat, clean, shaved and sober, and I didn't care who knew it. I

Ata që shpenzojnë paret e tyre për tu eksituar me mënyra të dorës së dytë, janë nevrikë si dukeshat që nuk e gjejnë dot banjën

She was quite a doll. She wore a white belted raincoat, no hat, a well-cherished head of platinum hair, booties to match the raincoat, a folding plastic umbrella, a pair of blue-gray eyes that looked at me as if I had said a dirty word.

Do you like orchids?' 'Not particularly,' I said. The General half closed his eyes. 'They are nasty things. Their flesh is too much like the flesh of men. And their perfume has the rotten sweetness of a prostitute.' I

Anybody home, son?" "You ought to know." "How would I know?" "Go — yourself." "That's how people get false teeth." He showed me his in a tight grin.

Javonen smiled - very slightly. Call it a down payment on a smile.