I don t mind a reasonable amount of trouble.

I've been as bad an influence on American literature as anyone I can think of.

The problem with putting two and two together is that sometimes you get four, and sometimes you get twenty-two.

Joel Cairo: You always have a very smooth explanation ready. Sam Spade: What do you want me to do, learn to stutter?

Listen, darling, tomorrow I'll buy you a whole lot of detective stories, but don't worry your pretty little head over mysteries tonight.

I couldn't be fonder of you if you were my own son. But, well, if you lose a son, its possible to get another. There's only one Maltese Falcon.

My way of learning is to heave a wild and unpredictable monkey-wrench into the machinery.

Feed the lettuce to the bunny and eat the bunny.

I once knew a man who stole a Ferris Wheel.

The cheaper the crook, the gaudier the patter.

You got to look on the bright side, even if there ain't one.

Everybody should have a librarian.

Apathy in general; people who are not standing up for what they believe in because somebody's got a louder mouth than them; it doesn't make any sense.

I'm going to slow down a little bit, but I won't stop creating. I can't!

It is when you have done your work honestly, when you have contributed your share to the common fund that you begin to live.

Beauty is a question of optics. All sight is illusion.

Everybody is somebody's Jew.

If a man lose his balance, and immerse himself in any trades or pleasures for their own sake, he may be a good wheel or pin, but he is not a cultivated man.

Politics now is rather like going into Starbucks for a coffee.

Everywhere you go, take a smile with you.

Private fortunes, in the present state of our circulation, are at the mercy of those self-created money lenders, and are prostrated by the floods of nominal money with which their avarice deluges us.