Raymond Chandler Quotes

When I split an infinitive, God damn it, I split it so it stays split.

Down these mean streets a man must go who is neither tarnished nor afraid

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

Some are able and humane men and some are low-grade individuals with the morals of a goat, the artistic integrity of a slot machine, and the manners of a floorwalker with delusions of grandeur.

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

There are two kinds of truth; The truth that lights the way and the truth that warms the heart. The fist of these is science and the second is art.

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

The challenge of screenwriting is to say much in little and then take half of that little out and still preserve an effect of leisure and natural movement

At least half the mystery novels published violate the law that the solution, once revealed, must seem to be inevitable.

Chess is as elaborate a waste of human intelligence as you can find outside an advertising agency.

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.

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

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

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

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

Dead men are heavier than broken hearts.

I hung up. It was a good start, but it didn’t go far enough. I ought to have locked the door and hidden under the desk.

There is no trap so deadly as the trap you set for yourself.

There was a sad fellow over on a bar stool talking to the bartender, who was polishing a glass and listening with that plastic smile people wear when they are trying not to scream.

She smelled the way the Taj Mahal looks by moonlight.

Organized crime is the dirty side of the sharp dollar.

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.

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

Most people go through life using up half their energy trying to protect a dignity they never had

When in doubt, have a man come through the door with a gun in his hand.

I think a man ought to get drunk at least twice a year just on principle, so he won't let himself get snotty about it.

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.

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.

The streets were dark with something more then night.

The moment a man sets his thoughts down on paper, however secretly, he is in a sense writing for publication.

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

You can always tell a detective on TV. He never takes his hat off.

A writer who is afraid to overreach himself is as useless as a general who is afraid to be wrong.

Alcohol is like love. The first kiss is magic, the second is intimate, the third is routine. After that you take the girl's clothes off.

I certainly admire people who do things.

The test of a writer is whether you want to read him again years after he should by the rules be dated.

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.

I was as hollow and empty as the spaces between stars.

In everything that can be called art there is a quality of redemption.

I'm in a wild mood tonight. I want to go dance in the foam. I hear the banshees calling.

As honest as you could expect a man to be in a world where it's out of style.

Mostly I just kill time," he said, "and it dies hard.

Show me a man or woman who cannot stand mysteries and I will show you a fool, a clever fool - perhaps - but a fool just the same.

Some days I feel like playing it smooth. Some days I feel like playing it like a waffle iron.

Dashiell Hammett took murder out of theVenetian vase and dropped it into the alley.

A really good detective never gets married.

The faster I write the better my output. If I'm going slow, I'm in trouble. It means I'm pushing the words instead of being pulled by them.

An age which is incapable of poetry is incapable of any kind of literature except the cleverness of a decadence.

The most durable thing in writing is style, and style is the single most valuable investment a writer can make with his time.