Most things in San Francisco can be bought or taken.

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.

All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them.

I don't go by the rule book-I lead from the heart not the head.

Learning is experience. Everything else is just information.

We must show sympathy with sinners, but not with their sins.

It makes me sad to hear girls constantly putting themselves down. We have these unbelievably high expectations of ourselves, when actually we're human beings and our bodies have a function.

The use of language is all we have to pit against death and silence.

What pleases me most is that sustainable development is on almost everybody's agenda now.

As a kid, I never thought I'd be an actress. Never, ever, ever, no way. I was really shy - bordering on social disorder shy - and I was really academic.

Something has to matter. Otherwise, a person's life will be miserable and empty.

Never slap a man who chews tobacco.