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.

Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid...He is the hero, he is everything. He must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man. He must be, to use a rather weathered phrase, a man of honor, by instinct, by inevitability, without thought of it, and certainly without saying it. He must be the best man in his world and a good enough man for any world

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.

There are people who can write their memoirs with a reasonable amount of honesty, and there are people who simply cannot take themselves seriously enough. I think I might be the first to admit that the sort of reticence which prevents a man from exploiting his own personality is really an inverted sort of egotism.

I said something which gave you to think I hated cats. But gad, sir, I am one of the most fanatical cat lovers in the business. If you hate them, I may learn to hate you. If your allergies hate them, I will tolerate the situation to the best of my ability.

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

It's fairly obvious that American education is a cultural flop. Americans are not a well-educated people culturally, and their vocational education often has to be learned all over again after they leave school and college. On the other hand, they have open quick minds and if their education has little sharp positive value, it has not the stultifying effects of a more rigid training.

The motion picture made in Hollywood, if it is to create art at all, must do so within such strangling limitations of subject and treatment that it is a blind wonder it ever achieves any distinction beyond the purely mechanical slickness of a glass and chromium bathroom.

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.

There was a desert wind blowing that night. It was one of those hot dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands' necks. Anything can happen. You can even get a full glass of beer at a cocktail lounge.

I'm an occasional drinker, the kind of guy who goes out for a beer and wakes up in Singapore with a full beard.

To say goodbye is to die a little.

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

The keynote of American civilization is a sort of warm-hearted vulgarity. The Americans have none of the irony of the English, none of their cool poise, none of their manner. But they do have friendliness. Where an Englishman would give you his card, an American would very likely give you his shirt.

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.

The impulse to perfection cannot exist where the definition of perfection is the arbitrary decision of authority. That which is born in loneliness and from the heart cannot be defended against the judgment of a committee of sycophants. The volatile essences which make literature cannot survive the clichés of a long series of story conferences.

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.

She lowered her lashes until they almost cuddled her cheeks and slowly raised them again, like a theatre curtain. I was to get to know that trick. That was supposed to make me roll over on my back with all four paws in the air.

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

There are two kinds of truth; the truth that lights the way and the truth that warms the heart. The first of these is science, and the second is art. Without art science would be as useless as a pair of high forceps in the hands of a plumber. Without science art would become a crude mess of folklore and emotional quackery.

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

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.

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

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

The streets were dark with something more then night.

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.

I certainly admire people who do things.

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.

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

So by all means let's have a television show quick and long, even if the commercial has to be delivered by a man in a white coat with a stethoscope hanging around his neck, selling ergot pills. After all the public is entitled to what it wants, isn't it? The Romans knew that and even they lasted four hundred years after they started to putrefy.

Your rat tail is all the fashion now. I prefer a bushy plume, carried straight up. You are Siamese and your ancestors lived in trees. Mine lived in palaces. It has been suggested to me that I am a bit of a snob. How true! I prefer to be.

The motion picture is like a picture of a lady in a half-piece bathing suit. If she wore a few more clothes, you might be intrigued. If she wore no clothes at all, you might be shocked. But the way it is, you are occupied with noticing that her knees are too bony and that her toenails are too large. The modern film tries too hard to be real. Its techniques of illusion are so perfect that it requires no contribution from the audience but a mouthful of popcorn.

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.