Common sense is the guy who tells you that you ought to have had your brakes relined last week before you smashed… — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
Police business is a hell of a problem. It's a good deal like politics. It asks for the highest type of men,… — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
As honest as you could expect a man to be in a world where it's out of style. — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
Show me a man or woman who cannot stand mysteries and I will show you a fool, a clever fool - perhaps… — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
It is not funny that a man should be killed, but it is sometimes funny that he should be killed for so… — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
Down these mean streets a man must go who is neither tarnished nor afraid — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
What greater prestige can a man like me (not too gifted, but very understanding) have than to have taken a cheap, shoddy… — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
The moment a man sets his thoughts down on paper, however secretly, he is in a sense writing for publication. — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
All language begins with speech, and the speech of common men at that, but when it develops to the point of becoming… — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
In everything that can be called art there is a quality of redemption. It may be pure tragedy, if it is high… — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
Throughout the history of commercial life nobody has ever quite liked the commission man. His function is too vague, his presence always… — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
A dead man is the best fall guy in the world. He never talks back. — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
All men who read escape from something else into what lies behind the printed page; the quality of the dream may be… — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
The private detective of fiction is a fantastic creation who acts and speaks like a real man. He can be completely realistic… — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
Undoubtedly the stories about them [hard-boiled detectives] had a fantastic element. Such things happened, but not so rapidly, nor to so close-knit… — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
A nice state of affairs when a man has to indulge his vices by proxy. — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
However toplofty and idealistic a man may be, he can always rationalize his right to earn money. — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
A man who drinks too much on occasion is still the same man as he was sober. An alcoholic, a real alcoholic,… — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
The plants filled the place, a forest of them, with nasty meaty leaves and stalks like the newly washed fingers of dead… — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid...He is the hero,… — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
There are people who can write their memoirs with a reasonable amount of honesty, and there are people who simply cannot take… — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
Some are able and humane men and some are low-grade individuals with the morals of a goat, the artistic integrity of a… — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
As honest as you can expect a man to be in a world where its going out of style. — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
The creative artist seems to be almost the only kind of man that you could never meet on neutral ground. You can… — 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