“The book was not new. Dates were stamped on the front endpaper, in and out dates. A rent book. A lending library… — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
As it is she will probably turn out to be one of these acid-faced virgins that sit behind little desks in public… — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
Let us never accept the point of view that mysteries are written by hacks. The poorest of us shed our blood over… — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
The test of a writer is whether you want to read him again years after he should by the rules be dated. — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
The average detective story is probably no worse than the average novel, but you never see the average novel. It doesn't get… — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
“All men who read escape from something else into what lies behind the printed page...” — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
“had my books been any worse I would not have been invited to Hollywood and if they had been any better I… — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
An age which is incapable of poetry is incapable of any kind of literature except the cleverness of a decadence. — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
James Cain - faugh! Everything he touches smells like a billygoat. He is every kind of writer I detest, a faux naix,… — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
“I didn't mind what she called me, what anybody called me. But this was the room I had to live in. It… — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
It is just possible that the tensions in a novel of murder are the simplest and yet most complete pattern of the… — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
“In writing a novel, when in doubt, have two guys come through the door with guns.” — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
If my books had been any worse, I should not have been invited to Hollywood, and if they had been any better,… — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
When a book, any sort of book, reaches a certain intensity of artistic performance it becomes literature. — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
“I have a bad habit of starting a book and reading just far enough to make sure I want to read it… — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
The reading public is intellectually adolescent at best, and it is obvious that what is called ''significant literature'' will only be sold… — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
At least half the mystery novels published violate the law that the solution, once revealed, must seem to be inevitable. — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
“Scarcely anything in literature is worth a damn except what is written between the lines.” — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
When a book, any sort of book, reaches a certain intensity of artistic performance, it becomes literature. That intensity may be a… — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
Television's perfect. You turn a few knobs, a few of those mechanical adjustments at which the higher apes are so proficient, and lean back… — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
Common sense is the guy who tells you that you ought to have had your brakes relined last week before you smashed a front… — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
“Hammett was the ace performer... He is said to have lacked heart; yet the story he himself thought the most of [The Glass Key]… — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
She jerked away from me like a startled fawn might, if I had a startled fawn and it jerked away from me. — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
Dashiell Hammett took murder out of theVenetian vase and dropped it into the alley. — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
“He [James Cain] is every kind of writer I detest...a Proust in greasy overalls, a dirty little boy with a piece of chalk and… — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
It was a blonde. A blonde to make a bishop kick a hole in a stained-glass window. — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
“I had been stalking the bluebottle fly for five minutes, waiting for him to sit down. He didn't want to sit down. He just… — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
“A three-piece Mexican band was making the kind of music a Mexican band always makes. Whatever they play, it all sounds the same. They… — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
