"I make no conscious effort to be tough,……" — James M. Cain
"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 to write as the character would write, and I never forget that the average man, from the fields, the streets, the bars, the offices and even the gutters of his country, has acquired a vividness of speech that goes beyond anything I could invent, and that if I stick to this heritage, this logos of the American countryside, I shall attain a maximum of effectiveness with very little effort."
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James M. Cain
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23 Quotes by James M. Cain
James M. Cain has 23 quotes on this site.
A few more worth reading:
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A home is not a museum. It doesn't have to be furnished with Picasso paintings, or Sheraton suites, or Oriental…
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Yes, I have actually mined coal, and distilled liquor, as well as seen a girl in a pink dress, and…
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I make no conscious effort to be tough, or hard-boiled, or grim, or any of the things I am usually…
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When it’s too good, you do it over again. Too good is too easy. If it’s too easy you have…
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New York is not even a city, it's a congerie of rotten villages.
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If you can't write like New York, you have no business living in New York and making New York the…
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Writing a novel is like working on foreign policy. There are problems to be solved. It's not all inspirational.
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A guitar has moonlight in it.
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O.K." "Gee I'm glad." "Me too. I'm so sick of hot dogs and beer and apple pie with cheese on…
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They threw me off the haytruck about noon.
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I write of the wish that comes true--for some reason, a terrifying thought.
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Love, when you get fear in it, it's not love any more. It's hate.
See all 23 quotes by James M. Cain »
More Acquired Quotes
This quote is filed under Acquired Quotes,
one of 524 quotes in that category. Here are a few more:
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Compassion is a practically acquired knowledge, like dancing. You must do it and practice diligently day by day.
— Karen Armstrong
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I find that a great part of the information I have was acquired by looking up something and finding something…
— Franklin P. Adams
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The first responsibility of the Muslim is as teacher. That is his job, to teach. His first school, his first…
— H. Rap Brown
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Out of war nations acquire additional territory, if they are victorious. They just take it. This newly acquired territory promptly…
— Smedley Butler
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I acquired a hunger for fairy tales in the dark days of blackout and blitz in the Second World War.
— A. S. Byatt
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Immense power is acquired by assuring yourself in your secret reveries that you were born to control affairs.
— Andrew Carnegie
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Most of the basic material a writer works with is acquired before the age of fifteen.
— Willa Cather
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Learning is acquired by reading books, but the much more necessary learning, the knowledge of the world, is only to…
— Lord Chesterfield
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Knowledge of the world in only to be acquired in the world, and not in a closet.
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To be an artist includes much; one must possess many gifts - absolute gifts - which have not been acquired…
— Kate Chopin
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Frivolity is inborn, conceit acquired by education.
— Marcus Tullius Cicero
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Negation is the mind's first freedom, yet a negative habit is fruitful only so long as we exert ourselves to…
— Emile M. Cioran
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