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Most People Go Through Life Using Up Half Their Energy Trying To Protect A Dignity They Never Had
-Raymond Chandler
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Most People Go Through

Raymond Chandler
...
Most People Go Through Life Using Up Half Their Energy Trying To Protect A Dignity They Never Had

Understanding the Quote: "most people go through life using up half their energy trying to..."

This quote by Raymond Chandler reflects deeply on the theme of people. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under People, Trying, Half, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how Raymond Chandler interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About Raymond Chandler

Raymond Chandler is celebrated for insightful thoughts on people and trying. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

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People
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The Character That Lasts Is An Ordinary Guy With Some Extraordinary Qualities.
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Most People Go Through Life Using Up Half Their Energy Trying To Protect A Dignity They Never Had
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I Belonged In Idle Valley Like A Pearl Onion On A Banana Split.
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Under The Thinning Fog The Surf Curled And Creamed, Almost Without Sound, Like A Thought Trying To Form Inself On The Edge Of Consciousness.
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The Streets Were Dark With Something More Then Night.
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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.
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There Is No Trap So Deadly As The Trap You Set For Yourself.
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Dashiell Hammett Took Murder Out Of Thevenetian Vase And Dropped It Into The Alley.
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You Can't Tell A Doper Well Under Control From A Vegetarian Book-keeper.
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When I Left Merle Was Wearing A Bungalow Apron And Rolling Pie Crust. She Came To The Door Wiping Her Hands On The Apron And Kissed Me On The Mouth And Began To Cry And Ran Back Into The House, Leaving The Doorway Empty [...] I Had A Funny Feeling As I Saw The House Disappear, As Though I Had Written A Poem And It Was Very Good And I Had Lost It And Would Never Remember It Again. (p. 262)
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Throughout The History Of Commercial Life Nobody Has Ever Quite Liked The Commission Man. His Function Is Too Vague, His Presence Always Seems One Too Many, His Profit Looks Too Easy, And Even When You Admit That He Has A Necessary Function, You Feel That This Function Is, As It Were, A Personification Of Something That In An Ethical Society Would Not Need To Exist. If People Could Deal With One Another Honestly, They Would Not Need Agents.
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I Knew One Thing: As Soon As Anyone Said You Didn't Need A Gun, You'd Better Take One Along That Worked.
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The Tragedy Of Life, Howard, Is Not That The Beautiful Die Young, But That They Grow Old And Mean. It Will Not Happen To Me.
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She Was Kind Of Girl Who'd Eat All Your Cashews And Leave You With Nothing But Peanuts And Filberts.
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I Sat Down On The Edge Of A Deep Soft Chair And Looked At Mrs Regan. She Was Worth A Stare. She Was Trouble.
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The Average Detective Story Is Probably No Worse Than The Average Novel, But You Never See The Average Novel. It Doesn't Get Published. The Average -- Or Only Slightly Above Average -- Detective Story Does.... Whereas The Good Novel Is Not At All The Same Kind Of Book As The Bad Novel. It Is About Entirely Different Things. But The Good Detective Story And The Bad Detective Story Are About Exactly The Same Things, And They Are About Them In Very Much The Same Way.
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As It Is She Will Probably Turn Out To Be One Of These Acid-faced Virgins That Sit Behind Little Desks In Public Libraries And Stamp Dates In Books.
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It Is A Language Which Is Being Molded By Writers To Do Delicate Things And Yet Be In The Grasp Of Superficially Educated People.
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A Really Good Detective Never Gets Married.
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I'm A Very Smart Guy. I Haven't A Feeling Or A Scruple In The World. All I Have The Itch For Is Money. I Am So Money Greedy That For Twenty-five Bucks A Day And Expenses, Mostly Gasoline And Whisky, I Do My Thinking Myself, What There Is Of It; I Risk My Whole Future, The Hatred Of The Cops . . . I Dodge Bullets And Eat Saps, And Say Thank You Very Much, If You Have Any More Trouble, I Hope You'll Think Of Me, I'll Just Leave One Of My Cards In Case Anything Comes Up.
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I'm All Done With Hating You. It's All Washed Out Of Me. I Hate People Hard, But I Don't Hate Them Very Long.
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Technique Alone Is Never Enough. You Have To Have Passion. Technique Alone Is Just An Embroidered Potholder.
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All Art At Some Time And In Some Manner Becomes Mass Entertainment, And If It Does Not It Dies And Is Forgotten.
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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.
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But Nothing Seems To Do Any Good.
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It Was A Smooth Silvery Voice That Matched Her Hair. It Had A Tiny Tinkle In It, Like Bells In A Doll's House. I Thought That Was Silly As Soon As I Thought Of It.
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She Was The Music Heard Faintly On The Edge Of Sound.
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The Agent Never Receipts His Bill, Puts His Hat On And Bows Himself Out. He Stays Around Forever, Not Only For As Long As You Can Write Anything That Anyone Will Buy, But As Long As Anyone Will Buy Any Portion Of Any Right To Anything That You Ever Did Write. He Just Takes Ten Per Cent Of Your Life.
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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.
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At Least Half The Mystery Novels Published Violate The Law That The Solution, Once Revealed, Must Seem To Be Inevitable.
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One Would Think A Writer Would Be Happy Here — If A Writer Is Ever Happy Anywhere.
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And The Commercials Would Have Sickened A Goat Raised On Barbed Wire And Broken Beer Bottles.
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You Were Dead, You Were Sleeping The Big Sleep, You Were Not Bothered By Things Like That, Oil And Water Were The Same As Wind And Air To You. You Just Slept The Big Sleep, Not Caring About The Nastiness Of How You Died Or Where You Fell. Me, I Was Part Of The Nastiness Now. Far More A Part Of It Than Rusty Regan Was.
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In Everything That Can Be Called Art There Is A Quality Of Redemption.
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If People Could Deal With Each Other Honestly, They Would Not Need Agents.
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She Bent Over Me Again. Blood Began To Move Around In Me, Like A Prospective Tenant Looking Over A House.
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A Man Who Drinks Too Much On Occasion Is Still The Same Man As He Was Sober. An Alcoholic, A Real Alcoholic, Is Not The Same Man At All. You Can't Predict Anything About Him For Sure Except That He Will Be Someone You Never Met Before.
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Any Man Who Can Write A Page Of Living Prose Adds Something To Our Life, And The Man Who Can, As I Can, Is Surely The Last To Resent Someone Who Can Do It Even Better. An Artist Cannot Deny Art, Nor Would He Want To. A Lover Cannot Deny Love.
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The Dilemma Of The Critic Has Always Been That If He Knows Enough To Speak With Authority, He Knows Too Much To Speak With Detachment.
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The Private Detective Of Fiction Is A Fantastic Creation Who Acts And Speaks Like A Real Man. He Can Be Completely Realistic In Every Sense But One, That One Sense Being That In Life As We Know It Such A Man Would Not Be A Private Detective.
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I've Found That There Are Only Two Kinds That Are Any Good: Slang That Has Established Itself In The Language, And Slang That You Make Up Yourself. Everything Else Is Apt To Be Passe Before It Gets Into Print.
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The Boys With Their Feet On The Desks Know That The Easiest Murder Case In The World To Break Is The One Somebody Tried To Get Very Cute With; The One That Really Bothers Them Is The Murder Somebody Only Thought Of Two Minutes Before He Pulled It Off.
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It Is Just Possible That The Tensions In A Novel Of Murder Are The Simplest And Yet Most Complete Pattern Of The Tensions On Which We Live In This Generation.
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When I Split An Infinitive, God Damn It, I Split It So It Stays Split.
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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.
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She Hung Up And I Set Out The Chess Board. I Filled A Pipe, Paraded The Chessmen And Inspected Them For French Shaves And Loose Buttons, And Played A Championship Tournament Game Between Gortchakoff And Meninkin, Seventy-two Moves To A Draw, A Prize Specimen Of The Irresistible Force Meeting The Immovable Object, A Battle Without Armour, A War Without Blood, And As Elaborate A Waste Of Human Intelligence As You Could Find Anywhere Outside An Advertising Agency.
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I'm In A Wild Mood Tonight. I Want To Go Dance In The Foam. I Hear The Banshees Calling.
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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.
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Its Big Men Are Mostly Little Men With Fancy Offices And A Lot Of Money. A Great Many Of Them Are Stupid Little Men, With Reach-me-down Brains, Small-town Arrogance And A Sort Of Animal Knack Of Smelling Out The Taste Of The Stupidest Part Of The Public. They Have Played In Luck So Long That They Have Come To Mistake Luck For Enlightenment." - On Hollywood
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A Check Girl In Peach-bloom Chinese Pajamas Came Over To Take My Hat And Disapprove Of My Clothes. She Had Eyes Like Strange Sins.
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It Is A Mass Language Only In The Same Sense That Its Baseball Slang Is Born Of Baseball Players. That Is, It Is A Language Which Is Being Molded By Writers To Do Delicate Things And Yet Be Within The Grasp Of Superficially Educated People. It Is Not A Natural Growth, Much As Its Proletarian Writers Would Like To Think So. But Compared With It At Its Best, English Has Reached The Alexandrian Stage Of Formalism And Decay.
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It Is Wrong To Be Harsh With The New York Critics, Unless One Admits In The Same Breath That It Is A Condition Of Their Existence That They Should Write Entertainingly About Something Which Is Rarely Worth Writing About At All.
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California, The Department Store State.
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Great Critics, Of Whom There Are Piteously Few, Build A Home For The Truth.
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Love Interest Nearly Always Weakens A Mystery Because It Introduces A Type Of Suspense That Is Antagonistic To The Detective's Struggle To Solve The Problem. It Stacks The Cards, And In Nine Cases Out Of Ten, It Eliminates At Least Two Useful Suspects. The Only Effective Love Interest Is That Which Creates A Personal Hazard For The Detective - But Which, At The Same Time, You Instinctively Feel To Be A Mere Episode. A Really Good Detective Never Gets Married.
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I Had A Funny Feeling As I Saw The House Disappear, As Though I Had Written A Poem And It Was Very Good And I Had Lost It And Would Never Remember It Again.
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The Faster I Write The Better My Output. If I'm Going Slow, I'm In Trouble. It Means I'm Pushing The Words Instead Of Being Pulled By Them.
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The Wise Screen Writer Is He Who Wears His Second-best Suit, Artistically Speaking, And Doesn't Take Things Too Much To Heart. He Should Have A Touch Of Cynicism, But Only A Touch. The Complete Cynic Is As Useless To Hollywood As He Is To Himself. He Should Do The Best He Can Without Straining At It. He Should Be Scrupulously Honest About His Work, But He Should Not Expect Scrupulous Honesty In Return. He Won't Get It. And When He Has Had Enough, He Should Say Goodbye With A Smile, Because For All He Knows He May Want To Go Back.
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To Say Goodbye Is To Die A Little.
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We Have The Whitest Kitchens And The Most Shining Bathrooms In The World. But In The Lovely White Kitchen The Average [person] Can’t Produce A Meal Fit To Eat, And The Lovely Shining Bathroom Is Mostly A Receptacle For Deodorants, Laxatives, Sleeping Pills, And The Products Of That Confidence Racket Called The Cosmetic Industry. We Make The Finest Packages In The World, Mr Marlowe. The Stuff Inside Is Mostly Junk." —
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When The Plot Flags, Bring In A Man With A Gun.
Gun
Men
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Television Is Really What We've Been Looking For All Our Lives.... [it's] Perfect. You Turn A Few Knobs And Lean Back And Drain Your Mind Of All Thought. And There You Are Watching The Bubbles In The Primordial Ooze.
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A Good Title Is The Title Of A Successful Book.
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Inspiration
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The Coffee Shop Smell Was Strong Enough To Build A Garage On.
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Without Magic, There Is No Art. Without Art, There Is No Idealism. Without Idealism, There Is No Integrity. Without Integrity, There Is Nothing But Production.
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It Was About Eleven O'clock In The Morning, Mid October, With The Sun Not Shining And A Look Of Hard Wet Rain In The Clearness Of The Foothills. I Was Wearing My Powder-blue Suit, With Dark Blue Shirt, Tie And Display Handkerchief, Black Brogues, Black Wool Socks With Dark Little Clocks On Them. I Was Neat, Clean, Shaved And Sober, And I Didn't Care Who Knew It. I Was Everything The Well-dressed Private Detective Ought To Be. I Was Calling On Four Million Dollars.
Morning
Rain
Dark
You're Broke, Eh?" I Been Shaking Two Nickels Together For A Month, Trying To Get Them To Mate.
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It Was A Cool Day And Very Clear. You Could See A Long Way-but Not As Far As Velma Had Gone.
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Way
Would You Convey My Compliments To The Purist Who Reads Your Proofs And Tell Him Or Her That I Write In A Sort Of Broken-down Patois Which Is Something Like The Way A Swiss Waiter Talks, And That When I Split An Infinitive, God Damn It, I Split It So It Will Stay Split, And When I Interrupt The Velvety Smoothness Of My More Or Less Literate Syntax With A Few Sudden Words Of Bar-room Vernacular, That Is Done With The Eyes Wide Open And The Mind Relaxed But Attentive.
God
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Eye
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 The Tricks And Has Nothing To Say.
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Desire
As Honest As You Could Expect A Man To Be In A World Where It's Out Of Style.
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She Jerked Away From Me Like A Startled Fawn Might, If I Had A Startled Fawn And It Jerked Away From Me.
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You Can Have A Hangover From Other Things Than Alcohol. I Had One From Women.
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Alcohol
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The Moment A Man Sets His Thoughts Down On Paper, However Secretly, He Is In A Sense Writing For Publication.
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Men
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He Snorted And Hit Me In The Solar Plexus. I Bent Over And Took Hold Of The Room With Both Hands And Spun It. When I Had It Nicely Spinning I Gave It A Full Swing And Hit Myself On The Back Of The Head With The Floor.
Swings
Hands
Rooms
The Actual Writing Is What You Live For. The Rest Is Something You Have To Get Through In Order To Arrive At The Point.
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Some Days I Feel Like Playing It Smooth. Some Days I Feel Like Playing It Like A Waffle Iron.
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It Was A Blonde. A Blonde To Make A Bishop Kick A Hole In A Stained-glass Window.
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Writers Who Get Written About Become Self-conscious. They Develop A Regrettable Habit Of Looking At Themselves Through The Eyes Of Other People. They Are No Longer Alone, They Have An Investment In Critical Praise, And They Think They Must Protect It. This Leads To A Diffusion Of Effort. The Writer Watches Himself As He Works. He Grows More Subtle And He Pays For It By Loss Of Organic Dash.
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The Perfect Detective Story Cannot Be Written. The Type Of Mind Which Can Evolve The Perfect Problem Is Not The Type Of Mind That Can Produce The Artistic Job Of Writing.
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Ideas
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The Best Way To Find Out If You Have Any Friends Is To Go Broke. The Ones That Hang On Longest Are Your Friends. I Don't Mean The Ones That Hang On Forever. There Aren't Any Of Those.
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Forever
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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.
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Lying
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What Greater Prestige Can A Man Like Me (not Too Gifted, But Very Understanding) Have Than To Have Taken A Cheap, Shoddy And Utterly Lost Kind Of Writing, And Have Made Of It Something That Intellectuals Claw Each Other About?
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If You Liked A Book, Don't Meet The Author
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You Can Always Tell A Detective On Tv. He Never Takes His Hat Off.
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She Had Eyes Like Strange Sins.
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Sin
It Is Not A Fragrant World.
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Society
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A Writer Who Is Afraid To Overreach Himself Is As Useless As A General Who Is Afraid To Be Wrong.
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Practice
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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.
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Drinking
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I Guess God Made Boston On A Wet Sunday.
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Boston
Cities
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Men
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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.
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Woe, Woe, Woe... In A Little While We Shall All Be Dead. Therefore Let Us Behave As Though We Were Dead Already.
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Littles
I'm A Licensed Private Investigator And Have Been For Quite A While. I'm A Lone Wolf, Unmarried, Getting Middle-aged, And Not Rich. I've Been In Jail More Than Once And I Don't Do Divorce Business. I Like Liquor And Women And Chess And A Few Other Things. The Cops Don't Like Me Too Well, But I Know A Couple I Get Along With. I'm A Native Son, Born In Santa Rosa, Both Parents Dead, No Brothers Or Sisters, And When I Get Knocked Off In A Dark Alley Sometime, If It Happens, As It Could To Anyone In My Business, Nobody Will Feel That The Bottom Has Dropped Out Of His Or Her Life.
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I Was As Hollow And Empty As The Spaces Between Stars.
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Looks
Way
Shake Your Business Up And Pour It. I Haven't Got All Day.
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Honesty
Writing
Men
You Don't Get Rich, You Don't Often Have Much Fun. Sometimes You Get Beaten Up Or Shot At Or Tossed Into The Jail House. Once In A Long While You Get Dead. Every Other Month You Decide To Give It Up And Find Some Sensible Occupation While You Can Still Walk Without Shaking Your Head. Then The Door Buzzer Rings And You Open The Inner Door To The Waiting Room And There Stands A New Face With A New Problem, A New Load Of Grief, And A Small Piece Of Money.
Fun
Grief
Jail
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
Hero
Mean
Men
If You Don't Leave, I'll Get Somebody Who Will.
Ifs
I Don’t Mind If You Don’t Like My Manners. They’re Pretty Bad. I Grieve Over Them During The Long Winter Evenings.
Winter
Grieving
Long
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.
Doors
Enough
Desks
There Are No Vital And Significant Forms Of Art; There Is Only Art, And Precious Little Of That.
Art
Littles
Significant
If You Believe In An Idea, You Don't Own You, It Owns You.
Believe
Passion
Ideas
I Looked Down At The Chessboard. The Move With The Knight Was Wrong. I Put It Back Where I Had Moved It From. Knights Had No Meaning In This Game. It Wasn't A Game For Knights.
Moving
Knights
Games
However Toplofty And Idealistic A Man May Be, He Can Always Rationalize His Right To Earn Money.
Money
Men
May
The Most Durable Thing In Writing Is Style, And Style Is The Single Most Valuable Investment A Writer Can Make With His Time.
Writing
Style
Investment
The Minute You Try To Talk Business With Him He Takes The Attitude That He Is A Gentleman And A Scholar, And The Moment You Try To Approach Him On The Level Of His Moral Integrity He Starts To Talk Business.
Attitude
Integrity
Gentleman
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.
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War
Science
Common Sense Is The Guy Who Tells You That You Ought To Have Had Your Brakes Relined Last Week Before You Smashed A Front End This Week. Common Sense Is The Monday Morning Quarterback Who Could Have Won The Ball Game If He Had Been On The Team. But He Never Is. He's High Up In The Stands With A Flask On His Hip. Common Sense Is The Little Man In A Grey Suit Who Never Makes A Mistake In Addition. But It's Always Someone Else's Money He's Adding Up.
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Everything Written With Vitality Expresses That Vitality: There Are No Dull Subjects, Only Dull Minds.
Mind
Vitality
Dull
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Writing
Silence
Mind
There Is Something About The Literary Life That Repels Me, All This Desperate Building Of Castles On Cobwebs, The Long-drawn Acrimonious Struggle To Make Something Important Which We All Know Will Be Gone Forever In A Few Years, The Miasma Of Failure Which Is To Me Almost As Offensive As The Cheap Gaudiness Of Popular Success.
Art
Struggle
Writing
Could She *be* Anymore Out Of My League?
League
Dating
Romance
I Have Made Three Rules Of Writing For Myself That Are Absolutes: Never Take Advice. Never Show Or Discuss Work In Progress. Never Answer A Critic.
Writing
Advice
Progress
Throw Up Into Your Typewriter Every Morning. Clean Up Every Noon.
Morning
Writing
Typewriters
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
Country
Mind
Way
James Cain - Faugh! Everything He Touches Smells Like A Billygoat. He Is Every Kind Of Writer I Detest, A Faux Naix, A Proust In Greasy Overalls, A Dirty Little Boy With A Piece Of Chalk And A Board Fence And Nobody Looking. Such People Are The Offal Of Literature, Not Because They Write About Dirty Things, But Because They Do It In A Dirty Way.
Dirty
Writing
Boys
The Law Isn't Justice. It's A Very Imperfect Mechanism. If You Press Exactly The Right Buttons And Are Also Lucky, Justice May Show Up In The Answer. A Mechanism Is All The Law Was Ever Intended To Be.
Law
Justice
Imperfection
I Always Find What I Want. But When I Find It, I Don't Want It Any More.
Want
He Was A Guy Who Talked With Commas, Like A Heavy Novel. Over The Phone Anyway.
Phones
Guy
Heavy
Until You Guys Own Your Own Souls You Don't Own Mine. Until You Guys Can Be Trusted Every Time And Always, In All Times And Conditions, To Seek The Truth Out And Find It And Let The Chips Fall Where They May—until That Time Comes, I Have The Right To Listen To My Conscience, And Protect My Client The Best Way I Can. Until I'm Sure You Won't Do Him More Harm Than You'll Do The Truth Good. Or Until I'm Hauled Before Somebody That Can Make Me Talk.
Fall
Guy
Soul
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.
Goodbye
Phrases
Littles
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.
Husband
Party
Fighting
I Certainly Admire People Who Do Things.
People
Admire
Undoubtedly The Stories About Them [hard-boiled Detectives] Had A Fantastic Element. Such Things Happened, But Not So Rapidly, Nor To So Close-knit A Group Of People, Nor Within So Narrow A Frame Of Logic. This Was Inevitable Because The Demand Was For Constant Action; If You Stopped To Think You Were Lost. When In Doubt, Have A Man Come Through A Door With A Gun In His Hand.
Gun
Men
Thinking
The Test Of A Writer Is Whether You Want To Read Him Again Years After He Should By The Rules Be Dated.
Writing
Years
Want
An Artist Cannot Deny Art, Nor Would He Want To. A Lover Cannot Deny Love.
Art
Want
Lovers
Nice: Meaning I'm Going To Be Dating Leather-wearing Alcoholics And Complaining About Them - To You.
Nice
Dating
Romance
Chess Is As Elaborate A Waste Of Human Intelligence As You Can Find Outside An Advertising Agency.
Agency
Chess
Waste
Real Cities Have Something Else, Some Individual Bony Structure Under The Muck. Los Angeles Has Hollywood -- And Hates It. It Ought To Consider Itself Damn Lucky. Without Hollywood It Would Be A Mail Order City. Everything In The Catalogue You Could Get Better Somewhere Else.
Hate
Real
Order
May I Wish For You The Knowledge...that Marriages Do Not Take Place, They Are Made By Hand; That There Is Always An Element Of Discipline Involved; That However Perfect The Honeymoon, The Time Will Come, However Brief It Is, When You Wish She Would Fall Downstairs And Break A Leg. This Goes For Her Too. But The Mood Will Pass, If You Give It Time.
Fall
Break A Leg
Hands
The Plants Filled The Place, A Forest Of Them, With Nasty Meaty Leaves And Stalks Like The Newly Washed Fingers Of Dead Men.
Men
Forests
Nasty
He Sounded Like A Man Who Had Slept Well And Didn't Owe Too Much Money.
Men
Too Much
Big Sleep
The Kind Of Lawyer You Hope The Other Fellow Has.
Law
Lawyer
Kind
When A Book, Any Sort Of Book, Reaches A Certain Intensity Of Artistic Performance, It Becomes Literature. That Intensity May Be A Matter Of Style, Situation, Character, Emotional Tone, Or Idea, Or Half A Dozen Other Things. It May Also Be A Perfection Of Control Over The Movement Of A Story Similar To The Control A Great Pitcher Has Over The Ball.
Book
Character
Emotional
La Doesn't Have The Heart Of A Paper Cup.
Heart
Paper
Cups
Tall, Aren't You? I Didn't Mean To Be.
Mean
Tall
The Overall Picture, As The Boys Say, Is Of A Degraded Community Whose Idealism Even Is Largely Fake. The Pretentiousness, The Bogus Enthusiasm, The Constant Drinking, The Incessant Squabbling Over Money, The All-pervasive Agent, The Strutting Of The Big Shots (and Their Usually Utter Incompetence To Achieve Anything They Start Out To Do), The Constant Fear Of Losing All This Fairy Gold And Being The Nothing They Have Never Ceased To Be, The Snide Tricks, The Whole Damn Mess Is Out Of This World.
Drinking
Boys
Community
There's Always Something To Do If You Don't Have To Work Or Consider The Cost. It's No Real Fun But The Rich Don't Know That. They Never Had Any. They Never Want Anything Very Hard Except Maybe Somebody Else's Wife And That's A Pretty Pale Desire Compared With The Way A Plumber's Wife Wants New Curtains For The Living Room.
Fun
Real
Wife
She Gave Me A Smile I Could Feel In My Hip Pocket.
Smile
Laughter
Laughing
There Is No Bad Whiskey. There Are Only Some Whiskeys That Aren't As Good As Others.
Drinking
Alcohol
Whiskey
The Growth Of Populations Has In No Way Increased The Amount [of Art], It Has Merely Increased The Adeptness With Which Substitutes Can Be Produced And Packaged.
Art
Growth
Population
I Regard Psychiatry As Fifty Percent Bunk, Thirty Percent Fraud, Ten Percent Parrot Talk, And The Remaining Ten Percent Just A Fancy Lingo For The Common Sense We Have Had For Hundreds And Perhaps Thousands Of Years, If We Ever Had The Guts To Read.
Years
Common Sense
Fifty
It Seemed Like A Nice Neighborhood To Have Bad Habits In.
Nice
Habit
Big Sleep
If My Books Had Been Any Worse, I Should Not Have Been Invited To Hollywood, And If They Had Been Any Better, I Should Not Have Come.
Funny
Book
Hollywood
Hollywood Is A Showman's Paradise. But Showmen Make Nothing; They Exploit What Someone Else Has Made. The Publisher And The Play Producer Are Showmen Too; But They Exploit What Is Already Made. The Showmen Of Hollywood Control The Making - And Thereby Degrade It. For The Basic Art Of Motion Pictures Is The Screenplay; It Is Fundamental, Without It There Is Nothing. Everything Derives From The Screenplay, And Most Of That Which Derives Is An Applied Skill Which, However Adept, Is Artistically Not In The Same Class With The Creation Of A Screenplay.
Art
Class
Play
A Nice State Of Affairs When A Man Has To Indulge His Vices By Proxy.
Nice
Men
Vices
California, The Department-store State. The Most Of Everything And The Best Of Nothing.
California
States
Stores
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.
Loneliness
Heart
Essence
The Most Durable Thing In Writing Is Style, And Style Is The Most Valuable Investment A Writer Can Make With His Time. It Pays Off Slowly, Your Agent Will Sneer At It, Your Publisher Will Misunderstand It, And It Will Take People You Have Never Heard Of To Convince Them By Slow Degrees That The Writer Who Puts His Individual Mark On The Way He Writes Will Always Pay Off.
Time
Writing
People
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.
Fashion
Cat
Tree
The English May Not Always Be The Best Writers In The World, But They Are Incomparably The Best Dull Writers.
World
Dull
May
Dead Men Are Heavier Than Broken Hearts.
Heart
Men
Broken
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.
Book
Views
Blood
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.
Funny
Women
Class
The Truth Of Art Keeps Science From Becoming Inhuman, And The Truth Of Science Keeps Art From Becoming Ridiculous.
Art
Becoming
Ridiculous
All Reading For Pleasure Is Entertainment.
Reading
Entertainment
Pleasure
If I Wasn't Hard, I Wouldn't Be Alive. If I Couldn't Ever Be Gentle, I Wouldn't Deserve To Be Alive.
Alive
Gentle
Hard
The Challenge Is To Write About Real Things Magically.
Real
Writing
Challenges
I Don't Mind Your Showing Me Your Legs. They're Very Swell Legs And It's A Pleasure To Make Their Acquaintance. I Don't Mind If You Don't Like My Manners. They're Pretty Bad. I Grieve Over Them During The Long Winter Evenings. But Don't Waste Your Time Trying To Cross-examine Me.
Winter
Night
Grieving
They Don't Want You Until You Have Made A Name, And By The Time You Have Made A Name, You Have Developed Some Kind Of Talent They Can't Use. All They Will Do Is Spoil It, If You Let Them.
Names
Hollywood
Use
Police Business Is A Hell Of A Problem. It's A Good Deal Like Politics. It Asks For The Highest Type Of Men, And There's Nothing In It To Attract The Highest Type Of Men.
Men
Police
Problem
He (the Agent) Just Takes Ten Per Cent Of Your Life.
Funny
Agents
Humour
Don't Ever Write Anything You Don't Like Yourself And If You Do Like It, Don't Take Anyone's Advice About Changing It. They Just Don't Know.
Writing
Advice
Like Yourself
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.
Education
School
College
A Real Gimlet Is Half Gin And Half Rose's Lime Juice And Nothing Else.
Real
Rose
Juice
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.
Art
Science
Light
The Wet Air Was As Cold As The Ashes Of Love.
Air
Ashes
Cold
Tall, Aren't You?" She Said. "i Didn't Mean To Be." Her Eyes Rounded. She Was Puzzled. She Was Thinking. I Could See, Even On That Short Acquaintance, That Thinking Was Always Going To Be A Bother To Her.
Mean
Eye
Thinking
A City With All The Personality Of A Paper Cup. (on Los Angeles)
Cities
Personality
Paper
Down These Mean Streets A Man Must Go Who Is Neither Tarnished Nor Afraid
Hero
Mean
Men
I Merely Say That All Reading For Pleasure Is Escape, Whether It Be Greek, Mathematics, Astronomy, Benedetto Croce, Or The Diary Of The Forgotten Man. To Say Otherwise Is To Be An Intellectual Snob, And A Juvenile At The Art Of Living.
Art
Reading
Men
The Moment A Man Begins To Talk About Technique That's Proof That He Is Fresh Out Of Ideas.
Men
Ideas
Technique
He Looked About As Inconspicuous As A Tarantula On A Slice Of Angel Food.
Food
Angel
Cooking
Mostly I Just Kill Time," He Said, "and It Dies Hard.
Said
Dies
Hard
Neither Of The Two People In The Room Paid Any Attention To The Way I Came In, Although Only One Of Them Was Dead.
Two
People
Attention
Organized Crime Is The Dirty Side Of The Sharp Dollar.
Dirty
Dollars
Sides
The Most Durable Thing In Writing Is Style. It Is A Projection Of Personality And You Have To Have A Personality Before You Can Project It. It Is The Product Of Emotion And Perception.
Writing
Personality
Perception
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