Raymond Chandler Quotes

One would think a writer would be happy here — if a writer is ever happy anywhere.

He was a guy who talked with commas, like a heavy novel. Over the phone anyway.

The kind of lawyer you hope the other fellow has.

Such is the brutalization of commercial ethics in this country that no one can feel anything more delicate than the velvet touch of a soft buck.

All men who read escape from something else into what lies behind the printed page; the quality of the dream may be argued, but its release has become a functional necessity.

LA doesn't have the heart of a paper cup.

Americans will eat anything if it is toasted and held together with a couple of toothpicks and has lettuce sticking out of the sides, preferably a little wilted.

You can't tell a doper well under control from a vegetarian book-keeper.

Let us never accept the point of view that mysteries are written by hacks. The poorest of us shed our blood over every chapter. The best of us start from scratch with every new book.

It is not funny that a man should be killed, but it is sometimes funny that he should be killed for so little, and that his death should be the coin of what we call civilization.

Everything a writer learns about the art or craft of fiction takes just a little away from his need or desire to write at all. In the end he knows all of the tricks and has nothing to say.

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

You like it in jail?""It's not too bad. You don't meet the best people, but who the hell wants to?

You like it in jail?It's not too bad. You don't meet the best people, but who the hell wants to?

You like it in jail?''It's not too bad. You don't meet the best people, but who the hell wants to?

I like games of chance, including women.

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

One day, everything will be like before again. And it is not like it.

A wedge of sunlight slipped over the edge of the desk and fell noiselessly to the carpet.

She was a cute as a washtub.

One would think a writer would be happy here -- if a writer is every happy anywhere.

Time makes everything mean and shabby and wrinkled. The tragedy of life, Howard, is not that the beautiful things die young, but that they grow old and mean.

But down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid.

He didn't know the right people. That's all a police record means in this rotten crime-ridden country.

You can make a lot of mistakes in just one lifetime. (I'll Be Waiting)

The voice was cool, drawling, and insolent, but the eyes were something else. She looked about as hard to get as a haircut.

A city no worse than others, a city rich and vigorous and full of pride, a city lost and beaten and full of emptiness.

She poured us some more Scotch. It didn't seem to affect her any more than water affects Boulder Dam.

His laugh and his voice were both pleasant. He talked the way New Yorkers used to talk before they learned to talk Flatbush.

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