Raymond Chandler Quotes - Page 2

Police business is a hell of a problem. It's a good deal like politics. It asks for the highest type of men, and there's nothing in it to attract the highest type of men.

Dead men are heavier than broken hearts.

She lowered her lashes until they almost cuddled her cheeks and slowly raised them again, like a theatre curtain. I was to get to know that trick. That was supposed to make me roll over on my back with all four paws in the air.

I like smooth shiny girls, hardboiled and loaded with sin.

She gave me a smile I could feel in my hip pocket.

Don't ever write anything you don't like yourself and if you do like it, don't take anyone's advice about changing it. They just don't know.

I knew one thing: as soon as anyone said you didn't need a gun, you'd better take one along that worked.

If you believe in an idea, you don't own you, it owns you.

The faster I write the better my output. If I'm going slow, I'm in trouble. It means I'm pushing the words instead of being pulled by them.

I hung up. It was a good start, but it didn’t go far enough. I ought to have locked the door and hidden under the desk.

I regard psychiatry as fifty percent bunk, thirty percent fraud, ten percent parrot talk, and the remaining ten percent just a fancy lingo for the common sense we have had for hundreds and perhaps thousands of years, if we ever had the guts to read.

When I split an infinitive, God damn it, I split it so it stays split.

As honest as you could expect a man to be in a world where it's out of style.

A writer who is afraid to overreach himself is as useless as a general who is afraid to be wrong.

I always find what I want. But when I find it, I don't want it any more.

The best way to find out if you have any friends is to go broke. The ones that hang on longest are your friends. I don't mean the ones that hang on forever. There aren't any of those.

I was as hollow and empty as the spaces between stars.

The character that lasts is an ordinary guy with some extraordinary qualities.

He sounded like a man who had slept well and didn't owe too much money.

There was a desert wind blowing that night. It was one of those hot dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands' necks. Anything can happen. You can even get a full glass of beer at a cocktail lounge.

The law isn't justice. It's a very imperfect mechanism. If you press exactly the right buttons and are also lucky, justice may show up in the answer. A mechanism is all the law was ever intended to be.

It was a cool day and very clear. You could see a long way-but not as far as Velma had gone.

She jerked away from me like a startled fawn might, if I had a startled fawn and it jerked away from me.

I said something which gave you to think I hated cats. But gad, sir, I am one of the most fanatical cat lovers in the business. If you hate them, I may learn to hate you. If your allergies hate them, I will tolerate the situation to the best of my ability.

Their constant yelping about a free press means, with a few honorable exceptions, freedom to peddle scandal, crime, sex, sensationalism, hate, innuendo and the political and financial uses of propaganda. A newspaper is a business out to make money through advertising revenue. That is predicated on the circulation and you know what circulation depends on.