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Raymond Chandler Quotes about Writing - Page 2

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Would you convey my compliments to the purist who reads your proofs and tell him or her that I write in a sort of broken-down patois which is something like the way a Swiss waiter talks, and that when I split an

Would you convey my compliments to the purist who reads your proofs and tell him or her that I write in a sort of broken-down patois which is something like the way a Swiss waiter talks, and that when I split an infinitive, God damn it, I split it so it will stay split, and when I interrupt the velvety smoothness of my more or less literate syntax with a few sudden words of bar-room vernacular, that is done with the eyes wide open and the mind relaxed but attentive.

Raymond Chandler
God, Writing, Eye
Letter to Edward Weeks, 18 Jan. 1947, in F. MacShane Life of Raymond Chandler (1976) ch. 7

The moment a man sets his thoughts down on paper, however secretly, he is in a sense writing for publication.

Raymond Chandler
Writing, Men, Paper

The perfect detective story cannot be written. The type of mind which can evolve the perfect problem is not the type of mind that can produce the artistic job of writing.

Raymond Chandler
Jobs, Writing, Perfect
Raymond Chandler (2014). “The World of Raymond Chandler: In His Own Words”, p.244, Vintage

They write them long because they can't write them short.

Raymond Chandler
Book, Writing, Long

It is wrong to be harsh with the New York critics, unless one admits in the same breath that it is a condition of their existence that they should write entertainingly about something which is rarely worth writing about at all.

Raymond Chandler
New York, Writing, Criticism
Raymond Chandler, Dorothy Gardiner, Kathrine Sorley Walker (1977). “Raymond Chandler Speaking”, p.78, Univ of California Press

The agent never receipts his bill, puts his hat on and bows himself out. He stays around forever, not only for as long as you can write anything that anyone will buy, but as long as anyone will buy any portion of any right to anything that you ever did write. He just takes ten per cent of your life.

Raymond Chandler
Writing, Long, Forever
Raymond Chandler, Dorothy Gardiner, Kathrine Sorley Walker (1977). “Raymond Chandler Speaking”, p.158, Univ of California Press

Good critical writing is measured by the perception and evaluation of the subject; bad critical writing by the necessity of maintaining the professional standing of the critic.

Raymond Chandler
Writing, Perception, Criticism
Raymond Chandler, Dorothy Gardiner, Kathrine Sorley Walker (1977). “Raymond Chandler Speaking”, p.78, Univ of California Press

What greater prestige can a man like me (not too gifted, but very understanding) have than to have taken a cheap, shoddy and utterly lost kind of writing, and have made of it something that intellectuals claw each other about?

Raymond Chandler
Taken, Writing, Men
Raymond Chandler (2014). “The World of Raymond Chandler: In His Own Words”, p.278, Vintage

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