Raymond Chandler Quotes
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A good story cannot be devised; it has to be distilled.
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He looked about as inconspicuous as a tarantula on a slice of angel food.
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I'm an occasional drinker, the kind of guy who goes out for a beer and wakes up in Singapore with a full beard.
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Don't ever write anything you don't like yourself and if you do like it, don't take anyone's advice about changing it. They just don't know.
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It is pretty obvious that the debasement of the human mind caused by a constant flow of fraudulent advertising is no trivial thing. There is more than one way to conquer a country
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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.
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I like smooth shiny girls, hardboiled and loaded with sin.
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From 30 feet away she looked like a lot of class. From 10 feet away she looked like something made up to be seen from 30 feet away.
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As honest as you could expect a man to be in a world where it's out of style.
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When I split an infinitive, God damn it, I split it so it stays split.
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If you're not tough it's hard to survive in this world; and if you're not kind then you don't deserve to survive.
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Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid...He is the hero, he is everything. He must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man. He must be, to use a rather weathered phrase, a man of honor, by instinct, by inevitability, without thought of it, and certainly without saying it. He must be the best man in his world and a good enough man for any world
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There are two kinds of truth; the truth that lights the way and the truth that warms the heart. The first of these is science, and the second is art. Without art science would be as useless as a pair of high forceps in the hands of a plumber. Without science art would become a crude mess of folklore and emotional quackery.
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It was a blonde. A blonde to make a bishop kick a hole in a stained-glass window.
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Police business is a hell of a problem. It's a good deal like politics. It asks for the highest type of men, and there's nothing in it to attract the highest type of men.
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There is no trap so deadly as the trap you set for yourself.
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She gave me a smile I could feel in my hip pocket.
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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.
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The girl gave him a look which ought to have stuck at least four inches out of his back.
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Most people go through life using up half their energy trying to protect a dignity they never had