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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.

-Raymond Chandler

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The Average Detective Story

Raymond Chandler

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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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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.

A Real Gimlet Is Half Gin And Half Rose's Lime Juice And Nothing Else.

However Toplofty And Idealistic A Man May Be, He Can Always Rationalize His Right To Earn Money.

The Plants Filled The Place, A Forest Of Them, With Nasty Meaty Leaves And Stalks Like The Newly Washed Fingers Of Dead Men.

Chess Is As Elaborate A Waste Of Human Intelligence As You Can Find Outside An Advertising Agency.

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.

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.

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.

When I Split An Infinitive, God Damn It, I Split It So It Stays Split.

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.

I Like Bars Just After They Open In The Evening. When The Air Inside Is Still Cool And Clean And Everything Is Shiny. The First Quiet Drink Of The Evening In A Quiet Bar -- That's Wonderful.

She Was Kind Of Girl Who'd Eat All Your Cashews And Leave You With Nothing But Peanuts And Filberts.

And The Commercials Would Have Sickened A Goat Raised On Barbed Wire And Broken Beer Bottles.

Neither Of The Two People In The Room Paid Any Attention To The Way I Came In, Although Only One Of Them Was Dead.

In Everything That Can Be Called Art There Is A Quality Of Redemption. It May Be Pure Tragedy, If It Is High Tragedy, And It May Be Pity And Irony, And It May Be The Raucous Laughter Of The Strong Man. But Down These Mean Streets A Man Must Go Who Is Not Himself Mean, Who Is Neither Tarnished Nor Afraid.

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?

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.

I Was As Hollow And Empty As The Spaces Between Stars.

All Language Begins With Speech, And The Speech Of Common Men At That, But When It Develops To The Point Of Becoming A Literary Medium It Only Looks Like Speech.

I Was Neat, Clean, Shaved And Sober And I Didn't Care Who Knew It.

A Dead Man Is The Best Fall Guy In The World. He Never Talks Back.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Dead Men Are Heavier Than Broken Hearts.

To Say Goodbye Is To Die A Little.

It Is A Language Which Is Being Molded By Writers To Do Delicate Things And Yet Be In The Grasp Of Superficially Educated People.

Delicate Things

I'm In A Wild Mood Tonight. I Want To Go Dance In The Foam. I Hear The Banshees Calling.

He Sounded Like A Man Who Had Slept Well And Didn't Owe Too Much Money.

The Truth Of Art Keeps Science From Becoming Inhuman, And The Truth Of Science Keeps Art From Becoming Ridiculous.

A Nice State Of Affairs When A Man Has To Indulge His Vices By Proxy.

I'm An Occasional Drinker, The Kind Of Guy Who Goes Out For A Beer And Wakes Up In Singapore With A Full Beard.

Show Me A Man Or Woman Who Cannot Stand Mysteries And I Will Show You A Fool, A Clever Fool - Perhaps - But A Fool Just The Same.

The Moment A Man Sets His Thoughts Down On Paper, However Secretly, He Is In A Sense Writing For Publication.

Not Only Is The Motion Picture An Art, But It Is The One Entirely New Art That Has Been Evolved On This Planet For Hundreds Of Years. It Is The Only Art At Which We Of This Generation Have Any Possible Chance To Greatly Excel.

This Generation

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 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.

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.

You Can Have A Hangover From Other Things Than Alcohol. I Had One From Women.

You Can't Tell A Doper Well Under Control From A Vegetarian Book-keeper.

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.

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.

Their Constant Yelping About A Free Press Means, With A Few Honorable Exceptions, Freedom To Peddle Scandal, Crime, Sex, Sensationalism, Hate, Innuendo And The Political And Financial Uses Of Propaganda. A Newspaper Is A Business Out To Make Money Through Advertising Revenue. That Is Predicated On The Circulation And You Know What Circulation Depends On.

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.

He Was A Guy Who Talked With Commas, Like A Heavy Novel. Over The Phone Anyway.

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.

Hammett Gave Murder Back To The Kind Of People That Commit It For Reasons, Not Just To Provide A Corpse; And With The Means At Hand, Not Hand-wrought Dueling Pistols, Curare And Tropical Fish.

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

He (the Agent) Just Takes Ten Per Cent Of Your Life.

The Challenge Is To Write About Real Things Magically.

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.

La Doesn't Have The Heart Of A Paper Cup.

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.

As Honest As You Could Expect A Man To Be In A World Where It's Out Of Style.

Above All Never Forget That A Marriage Is In One Way Very Much Like A Newspaper. It Has To Be Made Fresh Every Damn Day Of Every Damn Year.

She Jerked Away From Me Like A Startled Fawn Might, If I Had A Startled Fawn And It Jerked Away From Me.

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.

She Had Eyes Like Strange Sins.

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.

The Coffee Shop Smell Was Strong Enough To Build A Garage On.

The More You Reason The Less You Create.

Great Critics, Of Whom There Are Piteously Few, Build A Home For The Truth.

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.

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.

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.

You Can Always Tell A Detective On Tv. He Never Takes His Hat Off.

She Gave Me A Smile I Could Feel In My Hip Pocket.

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.

I Sat Down On The Edge Of A Deep Soft Chair And Looked At Mrs Regan. She Was Worth A Stare. She Was Trouble.

Dashiell Hammett Took Murder Out Of Thevenetian Vase And Dropped It Into The Alley.

The Girl Gave Him A Look Which Ought To Have Stuck At Least Four Inches Out Of His Back.

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.

I Always Find What I Want. But When I Find It, I Don't Want It Any More.

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.

I Like Smooth Shiny Girls, Hardboiled And Loaded With Sin.

The Character That Lasts Is An Ordinary Guy With Some Extraordinary Qualities.

She Smelled The Way The Taj Mahal Looks By Moonlight.

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.

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.

In Everything That Can Be Called Art There Is A Quality Of Redemption.

Dames Lie About Anything - Just For Practice.

Some Days I Feel Like Playing It Smooth. Some Days I Feel Like Playing It Like A Waffle Iron.

I'm Killing Time And It's Dying Hard.

The Actual Writing Is What You Live For. The Rest Is Something You Have To Get Through In Order To Arrive At The Point.

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.

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.

It Is Not Funny That A Man Should Be Killed, But It Is Sometimes Funny That He Should Be Killed For So Little, And That His Death Should Be The Coin Of What We Call Civilization.

You Can't Have Everything, Even In California

Woe, Woe, Woe... In A Little While We Shall All Be Dead. Therefore Let Us Behave As Though We Were Dead Already.

All Reading For Pleasure Is Entertainment.

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.

It Is Not A Fragrant World.

Could She *be* Anymore Out Of My League?

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.

The Most Durable Thing In Writing Is Style, And Style Is The Single Most Valuable Investment A Writer Can Make With His Time.

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.

An Artist Cannot Deny Art, Nor Would He Want To. A Lover Cannot Deny Love.

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.

Television Is Just One More Facet Of That Considerable Segment Of Our Society That Never Had Any Standard But The Soft Buck.

Hollywood Is Wonderful. Anyone Who Doesn't Like It Is Either Crazy Or Sober.

If People Could Deal With Each Other Honestly, They Would Not Need Agents.

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.

That's One Thing I Like About Hollywood. The Writer Is There Revealed In His Ultimate Corruption. He Asks No Praise, Because His Praise Comes To Him In The Form Of A Salary Check. In Hollywood The Average Writer Is Not Young, Not Honest, Not Brave, And A Bit Overdressed. But He Is Darn Good Company, Which Book Writers As A Rule Are Not. He Is Better Than What He Writes. Most Book Writers Are Not As Good.

A Good Title Is The Title Of A Successful Book.

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.

But Nothing Seems To Do Any Good.

I Certainly Admire People Who Do Things.

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.

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.

Technique Alone Is Never Enough. You Have To Have Passion. Technique Alone Is Just An Embroidered Potholder.

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.

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.

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.

If You Don't Leave, I'll Get Somebody Who Will.

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.

When A Book, Any Sort Of Book, Reaches A Certain Intensity Of Artistic Performance It Becomes Literature.

A Writer Who Is Afraid To Overreach Himself Is As Useless As A General Who Is Afraid To Be Wrong.

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.

It Was A Blonde. A Blonde To Make A Bishop Kick A Hole In A Stained-glass Window.

Good Critical Writing Is Measured By The Perception And Evaluation Of The Subject; Bad Critical Writing By The Necessity Of Maintaining The Professional Standing Of The Critic.

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.

She Bent Over Me Again. Blood Began To Move Around In Me, Like A Prospective Tenant Looking Over A House.

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.

You're Broke, Eh?" I Been Shaking Two Nickels Together For A Month, Trying To Get Them To Mate.

The Test Of A Writer Is Whether You Want To Read Him Again Years After He Should By The Rules Be Dated.

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.

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.

The Kind Of Lawyer You Hope The Other Fellow Has.

The Reading Public Is Intellectually Adolescent At Best, And It Is Obvious That What Is Called ''significant Literature'' Will Only Be Sold To This Public By Exactly The Same Methods As Are Used To Sell It Toothpaste, Cathartics And Automobiles.

Down These Mean Streets A Man Must Go Who Is Neither Tarnished Nor Afraid

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.

When In Doubt, Have A Man Come Through The Door With A Gun In His Hand.

California, The Department Store State.

An Age Which Is Incapable Of Poetry Is Incapable Of Any Kind Of Literature Except The Cleverness Of A Decadence.

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.

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)

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.

This Generation

There Is No Bad Whiskey. There Are Only Some Whiskeys That Aren't As Good As Others.

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." —

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.

Under The Thinning Fog The Surf Curled And Creamed, Almost Without Sound, Like A Thought Trying To Form Inself On The Edge Of Consciousness.

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.

If You Believe In An Idea, You Don't Own You, It Owns You.

One Would Think A Writer Would Be Happy Here — If A Writer Is Ever Happy Anywhere.

If I Wasn't Hard, I Wouldn't Be Alive. If I Couldn't Ever Be Gentle, I Wouldn't Deserve To Be Alive.

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.

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.

Everything Written With Vitality Expresses That Vitality: There Are No Dull Subjects, Only Dull Minds.

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.

There Ain't No Clean Way To Make A Hundred Million Bucks.... Somewhere Along The Line Guys Got Pushed To The Wall, Nice Little Businesses Got The Ground Cut Out From Under Them... Decent People Lost Their Jobs.... Big Money Is Big Power And Big Power Gets Used Wrong. It's The System.

Two Very Simple Rules: A. You Don't Have To Write. B. You Can't Do Anything Else The Rest Comes Of Itself.

Tall, Aren't You? I Didn't Mean To Be.

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

I Guess God Made Boston On A Wet Sunday.

The Publishers And Others Should Quit Worrying About Losing Customers To Tv. The Guy Who Can Sit Through A Trio Of Deodorant Commercials To Look At Flashgun Casey Or Swallow A Flock Of Beer And Loan-shark Spiels In Order To Watch A Couple Of Fourth-rate Club Fighters Rub Noses On The Ropes Is Not Losing Any Time From Book Reading.

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.

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

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.

A City With All The Personality Of A Paper Cup. (on Los Angeles)

When The Plot Flags, Bring In A Man With A Gun.

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.

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.

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 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.

Courage Is A Strange Thing: One Can Never Be Sure Of It

I Knew One Thing: As Soon As Anyone Said You Didn't Need A Gun, You'd Better Take One Along That Worked.

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.

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.

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.

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

She Was The Music Heard Faintly On The Edge Of Sound.

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.

At Least Half The Mystery Novels Published Violate The Law That The Solution, Once Revealed, Must Seem To Be Inevitable.

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 English May Not Always Be The Best Writers In The World, But They Are Incomparably The Best Dull Writers.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Throw Up Into Your Typewriter Every Morning. Clean Up Every Noon.

I Don’t Mind If You Don’t Like My Manners. They’re Pretty Bad. I Grieve Over Them During The Long Winter Evenings.

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.

It Seemed Like A Nice Neighborhood To Have Bad Habits In.

They Write Them Long Because They Can't Write Them Short.

I Suppose All Writers Are Crazy, But If They Are Any Good, I Believe They Have A Terrible Honesty.

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.

It Was A Cool Day And Very Clear. You Could See A Long Way-but Not As Far As Velma Had Gone.

Shake Your Business Up And Pour It. I Haven't Got All Day.

He Looked About As Inconspicuous As A Tarantula On A Slice Of Angel Food.

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.

The Flood Of Print Has Turned Reading Into A Process Of Gulping Rather Than Savoring.

Mostly I Just Kill Time," He Said, "and It Dies Hard.

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

[as A Screenwriter] I Have A Sense Of Exile From Thought, A Nostalgia Of The Quiet Room And Balanced Mind. I Am A Writer, And There Comes A Time When That Which I Write Has To Belong To Me, Has To Be Written Alone And In Silence, With No One Looking Over My Shoulder, No One Telling Me A Better Way To Write It. It Doesn't Have To Be Great Writing, It Doesn't Even Have To Be Terribly Good. It Just Has To Be Mine.

I Belonged In Idle Valley Like A Pearl Onion On A Banana Split.

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.

A Really Good Detective Never Gets Married.

If You Liked A Book, Don't Meet The Author

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Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

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