Famous Quotes by Raymond Chandler

  • The keynote of American civilization is a sort of warm-hearted vulgarity. The Americans have none... More
  • Bruno Antony: Tell me, Judge, after you’ve sentenced a man to the chair, isn’t it difficult... More
  • What is a life or two, Guy! Some people are better off dead. Like your wife and my father, for... More
  • I certainly admire people who do things. More
  • A really good detective never gets married. More
  • There are two kinds of truth; the truth that lights the way and the truth that warms the heart.... More
  • Their constant yelping about a free press means, with a few honorable exceptions, freedom to... More
  • When I split an infinitive, God damn it, I split it so it will stay split. More
  • It is a mass language only in the same sense that its baseball slang is born of baseball players.... More
  • It’s fairly obvious that American education is a cultural flop. Americans are not a... More
  • The motion picture made in Hollywood, if it is to create art at all, must do so within such... More
  • It was a blonde. A blonde to make a bishop kick a hole in a stained-glass window. More
  • She gave me a smile I could feel in my hip pocket. More
  • He looked about as inconspicuous as a tarantula on a slice of angel food. More
  • I needed a drink, I needed a lot of life insurance, I needed a vacation, I needed a home in the... More
  • You can always tell a detective on TV. He never takes his hat off. More
  • Common sense always speaks too late. Common sense is the guy who tells you you ought to have had... More
  • What did it matter where you lay once you were dead? In a dirty sump or in a marble tower on top... More
  • I’m a very smart guy. I haven’t a feeling or a scruple in the world. All I have the itch for... More
  • I used to like this town.... Los Angeles was just a big dry sunny place with ugly homes and no... More
  • Twenty-four hours a day somebody is running, somebody else is trying to catch him. Out there in... More
  • Television’s perfect. You turn a few knobs, a few of those mechanical adjustments at which the... More
  • The moment a man begins to talk about technique that’s proof that he is fresh out of ideas. More
  • So by all means let’s have a television show quick and long, even if the commercial has to be... More
  • Good critical writing is measured by the perception and evaluation of the subject; bad critical... More
  • It is wrong to be harsh with the New York critics, unless one admits in the same breath that it... More
  • Let us never accept the point of view that mysteries are written by hacks. The poorest of us shed... More
  • The more you reason the less you create. More
  • There is something about the literary life that repels me, all this desperate building of castles... More
  • Such is the brutalization of commercial ethics in this country that no one can feel anything more... More
  • When a book, any sort of book, reaches a certain intensity of artistic performance it becomes... More
  • Any man who can write a page of living prose adds something to our life, and the man who can, as... More
  • That’s one thing I like about Hollywood. The writer is there revealed in his ultimate... More
  • The private detective of fiction is a fantastic creation who acts and speaks like a real man. He... More
  • There are people who can write their memoirs with a reasonable amount of honesty, and there are... More
  • I’ve found that there are only two kinds that are any good: slang that has established itself... More
  • An age which is incapable of poetry is incapable of any kind of literature except the cleverness... More
  • The reading public is intellectually adolescent at best, and it is obvious that what is called... More
  • However toplofty and idealistic a man may be, he can always rationalize his right to earn money. More
  • Most critical writing is drivel and half of it is dishonest.... It is a short cut to oblivion,... More
  • The moment a man sets his thoughts down on paper, however secretly, he is in a sense writing for... More
  • The overall picture, as the boys say, is of a degraded community whose idealism even is largely... More
  • The motion picture is like a picture of a lady in a half- piece bathing suit. If she wore a few... More
  • The creative artist seems to be almost the only kind of man that you could never meet on neutral... More
  • Alive today he would undoubtedly have written and directed motion pictures, plays and God knows... More
  • The minute you try to talk business with him he takes the attitude that he is a gentleman and a... More
  • Woe, woe, woe ... in a little while we shall all be dead. Therefore let us behave as though we... More
  • Would you convey my compliments to the purist who reads your proofs and tell him or her that I... More
  • The wise screen writer is he who wears his second-best suit, artistically speaking, and doesn’t... More
  • It is pretty obvious that the debasement of the human mind caused by a constant flow of... More
  • It is just possible that the tensions in a novel of murder are the simplest and yet most complete... More
  • They don’t want you until you have made a name, and by the time you have made a name, you have... More
  • A good story cannot be devised; it has to be distilled. More
  • If my books had been any worse, I should not have been invited to Hollywood, and ... if they had... More
  • The most durable thing in writing is style, and style is the most valuable investment a writer... More
  • I am ... by tradition and long study a complete snob. P. Marlowe and I do not despise the upper... More
  • Your rat tail is all the fashion now. I prefer a bushy plume, carried straight up. You are... More
  • I said something which gave you to think I hated cats. But gad, sir, I am one of the most... More
  • The law isn’t justice. It’s a very imperfect mechanism. If you press exactly the right... More
  • The agent never receipts his bill, puts his hat on and bows himself out. He stays around forever,... More
  • Throughout the history of commercial life nobody has ever quite liked the commission man. His... More
  • Alcohol is like love. The first kiss is magic, the second is intimate, the third is routine.... More
  • In jail a man has no personality. He is a minor disposal problem and a few entries on reports.... More
  • The kind of lawyer you hope the other fellow has. More
  • I guess God made Boston on a wet Sunday. More
  • The English may not always be the best writers in the world, but they are incomparably the best... More
  • Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor... More
  • It is not funny that a man should be killed, but it is sometimes funny that he should be killed... More
  • The boys with their feet on the desks know that the easiest murder case in the world to break is... More
  • The perfect detective story cannot be written. The type of mind which can evolve the perfect... More
  • Some are able and humane men and some are low-grade individuals with the morals of a goat, the... More
  • Its idea of “production value” is spending a million dollars dressing up a story that any... More
  • The making of a picture ought surely to be a rather fascinating adventure. It is not; it is an... More
  • The impulse to perfection cannot exist where the definition of perfection is the arbitrary... More
  • The challenge of screenwriting is to say much in little and then take half of that little out and... More
  • Murder’s never perfect. Always comes apart sooner or later. And when two people are involved,... More
  • You’re not smarter, Walter, just a little taller. More
  • Walter Neff: I’m crazy about you, baby.
    Phyllis Dietrichson: I’m crazy about you,... More
  • You want to know who killed Dietrichson? Hold tight to that cheap cigar of yours, Keyes. I killed... More
  • It was a hot afternoon and I can still remember the smell of honeysuckle all along the street.... More

Dictionary Tip:

Lookup any word on eNotes with our dictionary. Highlight the word and press SHIFT + D for a definition, or SHIFT + T for a synonym.