When it’s too good, you do it over again. Too good is too easy. If it’s too easy you have to worry. If you’re not lying awake at night worrying about it, the reader isn’t going to, either. I always… — James M. Cain Copy Share Image
A lot of novelists start late-Conrad, Pirandello, even Mark Twain. When you're young, chess is all right, and music and poetry. But novel-writing is something else. It has to be learned, but it can't be taught. This bunkum and stinkum… — James M. Cain Copy Share Image
A home is not a museum. It doesn't have to be furnished with Picasso paintings, or Sheraton suites, or Oriental rugs, or Chinese pottery.… — James M. Cain Copy Share Image
“By nine, Mildred was powdered, puffed, perfumed, and patted to that state of semi-transparency that a woman seems to achieve when she is really… — James M. Cain Copy Share Image
“I ripped all her clothes off. She twisted and turned, slow, so they would slip out from under her. Then she closed her eyes… — James M. Cain Copy Share Image
“Then she got up, went to Monty's mirror, and began combing her hair, while little cadenzas absentmindedly cascaded out of her throat, and cold… — James M. Cain Copy Share Image
If your writing doesn`t keep you up at night, it won`t keep anyone else up either". — James M. Cain Copy Share Image
“Up close, she could see the sharp, cold, look that she constantly shot at Mr. Treviso, particularly when there was a break, and she… — James M. Cain Copy Share Image
I make no conscious effort to be tough, or hard-boiled, or grim, or any of the things I am usually called. I merely try… — James M. Cain Copy Share Image
She was a little given to rehearsing things in her mind, and having imaginary triumphs over people who had upset her in one way… — James M. Cain Copy Share Image
“She looked like the great grandmother of every whore in the world. The devil got his money's worth that night.” — James M. Cain Copy Share Image
