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.

-Raymond Chandler

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Writers Who Get Written

Raymond Chandler

Topic

Eye

Writing

Loss

More From Raymond Chandler

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

Fawns

Might

Ifs

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

Fog

Trying

Sound

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.

Real

Clothes

Perfect

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

Useless

A Good Title Is The Title Of A Successful Book.

Book

Inspiration

Successful

She Had Eyes Like Strange Sins.

Eye

Strange

Sin

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

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

Death

Dying

Littles

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.

Perfect

Mind

Television

Could She *be* Anymore Out Of My League?

League

Dating

Romance

To Say Goodbye Is To Die A Little.

Goodbye

Littles

Chaos

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

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

Men

Style

Going Out

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

Beer

Broken

Wire

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.

Two

Language

Kind

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)

Doors

Hands

Pie

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.

Too Much

Speak

Detachment

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

Mind

Vitality

Dull

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

Said

Dies

Hard

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

Believe

Passion

Ideas

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.

Real

Drinking

Men

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.

Mean

Men

Years

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

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.

Glasses

Talking

People

[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.

Writing

Silence

Mind

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

Nice

Men

Vices

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

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.

Art

War

Science

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

Girl

Sarcastic

Kind

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.

Real

Men

Fiction

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

Ifs

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

Beer

Guy

Wake Up

California, The Department-store State. The Most Of Everything And The Best Of Nothing.

California

States

Stores

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

Dying

Killing

Time To Kill

It Is Not A Fragrant World.

Anger

Society

World

The Creative Artist Seems To Be Almost The Only Kind Of Man That You Could Never Meet On Neutral Ground. You Can Only Meet Him As An Artist. He Sees Nothing Objectively Because His Own Ego Is Always In The Foreground Of Every Picture

Art

Men

Creative

There Is No Trap So Deadly As The Trap You Set For Yourself.

Traps

Dames Lie About Anything - Just For Practice.

Lying

Practice

Dames

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.

Country

Home

Gun

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

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

Mean

Tall

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.

Sex

Hate

Mean

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

Reading

Character

Guy

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

Book

Reading

Design

There Are No Vital And Significant Forms Of Art; There Is Only Art, And Precious Little Of That.

Art

Littles

Significant

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

People

Needs

Agents

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?

Taken

Writing

Men

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

Gun

Needs

Said

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.

War

Moving

Agency

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.

Art

Glasses

Hollywood

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.

Girl

Drinking

Beer

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

People

Language

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

Sound

Heard

Edges

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.

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.

Baseball

Communication

Player

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

Book

Reading

Writing

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

Strong

Coffee

Smell

But Nothing Seems To Do Any Good.

Seems

The Streets Were Dark With Something More Then Night.

Dark

Night

Streets

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

Book

Drug

Vegetarian

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

Funny

Agents

Humour

The More You Reason The Less You Create.

Success

Creativity

Ideas

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.

Cute

Boys

Murder Victims

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

Cities

Personality

Paper

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

Foam

Tonight

Calling

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

Passion

Writing

Technique

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.

Mean

Hands

People

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

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

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.

Marriage

Years

Way

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.

Art

Integrity

Magic

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.

Monday

Morning

Mistake

I Do A Great Deal Of Research, Especially In The Apartments Of Tall Blondes.

Blonde

Research

Deals

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

Girl

Looks

Four

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.

Real

Perfect

Trying

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

Hero

Mean

Men

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.

Mean

Forever

Way

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

People

Trying

Half

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

Iron

Waffles

Smooth

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 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

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

Moving

Blood

House

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.

Love

Appreciation

Art

Nice: Meaning I'm Going To Be Dating Leather-wearing Alcoholics And Complaining About Them - To You.

Nice

Dating

Romance

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

Age

Literature

Kind

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

Phones

Guy

Heavy

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.

Community

Society

World

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

Money

Men

May

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.

New York

Writing

Criticism

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

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.

Girl

Eye

Clothes

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

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

Book

Literature

Artistic

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

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.

Writing

Perception

Criticism

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.

Sleep

Caring

Oil And Water

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

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.

War

Civilization

America

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

Smile

Laughter

Laughing

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.

Art

Writing

Desire

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

World

Dull

May

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

Men

Too Much

Big Sleep

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.

Drinking

Beer

Men

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

Heart

Paper

Cups

The Moment A Man Begins To Talk About Technique That's Proof That He Is Fresh Out Of Ideas.

Men

Ideas

Technique

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

Dead Men Are Heavier Than Broken Hearts.

Heart

Men

Broken

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.

Hate

Long

People

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.

Struggle

Two

Nine

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.

Integrity

Men

Hollywood

California, The Department Store State.

California

Dignity

States

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.

Funny

Men

People

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

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

Trouble

Chairs

Regan

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

Fall

Men

Guy

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

Onions

Splits

Pearls

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

Inspiration

Strange

Strange Things

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.

Dream

Lying

Men

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

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

Home

Critics

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

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

Agency

Chess

Waste

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 Wet Air Was As Cold As The Ashes Of Love.

Air

Ashes

Cold

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.

Book

Library

Littles

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

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

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

Writing

Challenges

Movement

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.

Wise

Goodbye

Honesty

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.

Couple

Together

Littles

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.

Art

Years

This Generation

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

Art

Becoming

Ridiculous

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

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

She Smelled The Way The Taj Mahal Looks By Moonlight.

Taj Mahal

Looks

Way

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 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.

Air

Bars

Firsts

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.

Reading

Society

Literature

The Kind Of Lawyer You Hope The Other Fellow Has.

Law

Lawyer

Kind

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

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

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

Vases

Murder

Alleys

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

Nice

Habit

Big Sleep

All Art At Some Time And In Some Manner Becomes Mass Entertainment, And If It Does Not It Dies And Is Forgotten.

Art

Doe

Entertainment

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

Writing

Eye

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

The Making Of A Picture Ought Surely To Be A Rather Fascinating Adventure. It Is Not; It Is An Endless Contention Of Tawdry Egos, Some Of Them Powerful, Almost All Of Them Vociferous, And Almost None Of Them Capable Of Anything Much More Creative Than Credit-stealing And Self-promotion.

Powerful

Adventure

Self

Love Interest Nearly Always Weakens A Mystery Because It Introduces A Type Of Suspense That Is Antagonistic To The Detective's Struggle To Solve A Problem.

Struggle

Writing

Suspense

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

Writing

Order

Most Critical Writing Is Drivel And Half Of It Is Dishonest. It Is A Short Cut To Oblivion, Anyway. Thinking In Terms Of Ideas Destroys The Power To Think In Terms Of Emotions And Sensations.

Writing

Cutting

Thinking

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

Honesty

Crazy

Believe

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

Stars

Numbness

Space

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.

Clever

Men

Fool

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

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.

Honesty

Writing

Men

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

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.

Couple

Book

Reading

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

Beauty

Glasses

Blonde

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

Television

Bucks

Our Society

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

Real

Rose

Juice

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

Detectives

Tvs

Hats

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

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.

Jobs

Wall

Nice

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

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

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

Big Sleep

Shakes

A Good Story Cannot Be Devised; It Has To Be Distilled.

Writing

Stories

Storytelling

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

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

Drinking

Alcohol

Whiskey

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.

Book

Average

Doe

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

Two

Trying

Together

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

Hangover

Alcohol

Big Sleep

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

Splits

Grammar

Damn

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

Thinking

Would Be

Ifs

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

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.

Smart

Thinking

Hatred

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.

Brother

Couple

Divorce

All Reading For Pleasure Is Entertainment.

Reading

Entertainment

Pleasure

You Can't Have Everything, Even In California

Inspiration

California

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

Writing

Gun

Men

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

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.

Art

Strong

Laughter

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

Morning

Writing

Typewriters

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

Book

Literature

Ifs

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

Writing

Simple

Two

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

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.

Silly

Hair

Voice

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

Crazy

Hollywood

Sober

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

Gun

Men

Plot

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.

Jobs

Writing

Perfect

I Guess God Made Boston On A Wet Sunday.

Sunday

Boston

Cities

I Certainly Admire People Who Do Things.

People

Admire

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

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

Art

Quality

Redemption

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

Writing

Men

Paper

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.

Book

Writing

Average

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

Girl

Sin

Smooth

Organized Crime Is The Dirty Side Of The Sharp Dollar.

Dirty

Dollars

Sides

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.

Country

Business

Velvet

Understanding Quotes: Their Essence and Application

Quotes, or quotations, are powerful tools in communication, encapsulating ideas, emotions, and wisdom in concise expressions. They serve various purposes across different contexts, from academic writing to everyday conversation.

1. Defining Quotes

A quote is a repetition of someone else's statement or thoughts. It can be a direct replication of words spoken or written by another individual, often used to support arguments, provide evidence, or convey profound insights.

2. The Importance of Quotes

2.1. Enhancing Credibility

Incorporating quotes from authoritative sources can bolster the credibility of your work. By referencing experts or primary sources, you demonstrate thorough research and a solid foundation for your arguments.

2.2. Providing Evidence

Quotes serve as concrete evidence to support claims. In academic and professional writing, they validate points made, offering readers a basis to trust the information presented.

2.3. Conveying Emotions and Perspectives

Quotes can encapsulate emotions and perspectives succinctly. They allow writers to express complex feelings or viewpoints through the words of others, often more eloquently than paraphrasing.

3. Types of Quotes

3.1. Direct Quotes

Direct quotes involve copying the exact words from a source, enclosed in quotation marks. They are used when the original wording is significant or particularly well-expressed.

3.2. Indirect Quotes (Paraphrasing)

Indirect quotes restate the original message in your own words. While not enclosed in quotation marks, they still require proper attribution to the original source.

3.3. Block Quotes

Block quotes are lengthy direct quotations, formatted as a separate block of text. They are typically used for quotes exceeding a certain length, varying by citation style. For instance, in APA style, quotes longer than 40 words are formatted as block quotes.

4. Proper Usage of Quotes

4.1. Contextual Relevance

Ensure that the quote you choose is relevant to the topic and adds value to your content. Avoid inserting quotes solely for decorative purposes.

4.2. Integration into Your Writing

Seamlessly integrate quotes into your writing. Introduce them appropriately and follow up with analysis or commentary to connect them to your main points.

4.3. Attribution and Citation

Always attribute quotes to their original authors and provide proper citations according to the required style guide (APA, MLA, Chicago, etc.).

5. Common Mistakes to Avoid

5.1. Overusing Quotes

Relying too heavily on quotes can overshadow your voice. Use them sparingly to support your arguments, not replace them.

5.2. Lack of Analysis

Presenting a quote without analysis or explanation can leave readers questioning its relevance. Always follow up with your interpretation or discussion.

5.3. Misquoting or Taking Out of Context

Ensure that quotes are accurate and not taken out of context, as this can mislead readers and undermine your credibility.

6. Quotes in Different Contexts

6.1. Academic Writing

In academic writing, quotes are used to support arguments, provide evidence, and engage with existing literature. Proper citation is crucial to avoid plagiarism.

6.2. Journalism

Journalists use quotes to provide firsthand accounts, add authenticity, and present multiple perspectives within a story.

6.3. Literature and Creative Writing

In literature, quotes can be used to convey character voices, themes, and stylistic elements. They enrich narratives and provide depth to storytelling.

7. Punctuation and Formatting

Understanding the correct punctuation and formatting of quotes is essential:

Quotation Marks: Always enclose direct quotes within quotation marks.

Punctuation Placement: In American English, periods and commas are placed inside quotation marks, while colons and semicolons are placed outside.

Block Quotes: For longer quotes, format them as block quotes without quotation marks, and indent the entire block.

8. Ethical Considerations

Ethical use of quotes involves accurate representation, proper attribution, and respect for intellectual property. Misuse can lead to plagiarism, which carries serious academic and professional consequences.

9. Tools for Managing Quotes

Utilize tools like citation generators and plagiarism checkers to manage quotes effectively. These tools help ensure proper formatting and originality in your writing.

Conclusion

Quotes are invaluable in enriching content, providing evidence, and conveying complex ideas succinctly. When used appropriately, they enhance the quality and credibility of your writing. Always ensure relevance, proper integration, and ethical usage to maximize their impact.

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