I like women. I really like women.

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.

Bouillabaisse is only good because cooked by the French, who, if they cared to try, could produce an excellent and nutritious substitute out of cigar stumps and empty matchboxes.

Who. Hit. You?

Somebody has to be sane during regular business hours, and it's not going to be me, missy.

He who does not believe in hell is in the greatest danger of landing there.

The thing worse than rebellion is the thing that causes rebellion.

The soul and eternity of one man depends upon the voice of another

You'll get unsociable people whatever the nationality, colour, race or creed. I guess the British abroad have probably got the worst record of anyone.

Give children beauty, not the record of bloody slaughters and barbarous brawls, as they call history, or of the latitude and longitude of places nobody cares to visit, as they call geography.

I'm not going to waste my time trying 'break' America, you know what I mean? Too many people have died trying to break America. America doesn't break unless it wants to.

Tennis is a huge part of my life, but I don't base my self-value or my self-worth or the quality of my life on my results on the court.