Quotes from Raymond Chandler

I needed a drink, I needed a lot of life insurance, I needed a vacation, I needed a home in the country. What I had was a coat, a hat and a gun. I put them on and went out of the room.

It seemed like a nice neighborhood to have bad habits in.

There is no bad whiskey. There are only some whiskeys that aren't as good as others.

A man who drinks too much on occasion is still the same man as he was sober. 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.

Without magic, there is no art. Without art, there is no idealism. Without idealism, there is no integrity. Without integrity, there is nothing but production.

It was a blonde. A blonde to make a bishop kick a hole in a stained-glass window.

Throw up into your typewriter every morning. Clean up every noon.

I don't mind your showing me your legs. They're very swell legs and it's a pleasure to make their acquaintace. I don't mind if you don't like my manners. They're pretty bad. I grieve over them during the long winter nights.

She gave me a smile I could feel in my hip pocket.

The girl gave him a look which ought to have stuck at least four inches out of his back.

There was a desert wind blowing that night. It was one of those hot dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands' necks. Anything can happen. You can even get a full glass of beer at a cocktail lounge.

The streets were dark with something more than night.

You're broke, eh?" I been shaking two nickels together for a month, trying to get them to mate.

You talk too damn much and too damn much of it is about you.

As honest as you can expect a man to be in a world where its going out of style.

The French have a phrase for it. The bastards have a phrase for everything and they are always right. To say goodbye is to die a little.

I'm an occasional drinker, the kind of guy who goes out for a beer and wakes up in Singapore with a full beard.

She lowered her lashes until they almost cuddled her cheeks and slowly raised them again, like a theatre curtain. I was to get to know that trick. That was supposed to make me roll over on my back with all four paws in the air.

He looked about as inconspicuous as a tarantula on a slice of angel food cake.

In writing a novel, when in doubt, have two guys come through the door with guns.

Tall, aren't you?" she said. "I didn't mean to be." Her eyes rounded. She was puzzled. She was thinking. I could see, even on that short acquaintance, that thinking was always going to be a bother to her.

I certainly admire people who do things.

A good story cannot be devised; it has to be distilled.

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