Source: The Big Sleep: A Novel
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Famous Raymond Chandler Quotes
“A good title is the title of a successful book.”
Source: The Raymond Chandler Papers: Selected Letters and Nonfiction, 1909-1959
Source: The Simple Art of Murder
“The girl gave him a look which ought to have stuck at least four inches out of his back.”
Source: The Long Goodbye: A Novel
“He was a guy who talked with commas, like a heavy novel. Over the phone anyway.”
Source: The Long Goodbye: A Novel
“Dead men are heavier than broken hearts.”
Source: The Big Sleep: A Novel
“I was neat, clean, shaved and sober and I didn't care who knew it.”
“Throw up into your typewriter every morning. Clean up every noon.”
“There is no trap so deadly as the trap you set for yourself.”
Source: The Big Sleep & Farewell, My Lovely
“It was a blonde. A blonde to make a bishop kick a hole in a stained-glass window.”
“A city with all the personality of a paper cup. (On Los Angeles)”
“To say goodbye is to die a little.”
Source: The Long Goodbye: A Novel
Source: The Simple Art of Murder
“As honest as you could expect a man to be in a world where it's out of style.”
Source: The Long Goodbye: A Novel
“A writer who is afraid to overreach himself is as useless as a general who is afraid to be wrong.”
Source: Trouble Is My Business: A Novel
“There are no vital and significant forms of art; there is only art, and precious little of that.”
Source: The Simple Art of Murder
Source: The Simple Art of Murder
Source: The Simple Art of Murder
Source: The World of Raymond Chandler: In His Own Words
“And the commercials would have sickened a goat raised on barbed wire and broken beer bottles.”
Source: The Long Goodbye: A Novel
Source: Raymond Chandler Speaking
“I was as hollow and empty as the spaces between stars.”
Source: The Long Goodbye: A Novel
“It seemed like a nice neighborhood to have bad habits in.”
Source: The Big Sleep & Farewell, My Lovely
Source: The Long Goodbye: A Novel
Source: The Lady in the Lake: The Little Sister ; The Long Goodbye ; Playback
“Down these mean streets a man must go who is neither tarnished nor afraid”
“I'm in a wild mood tonight. I want to go dance in the foam. I hear the banshees calling.”
Source: The Big Sleep & Farewell, My Lovely
Source: Stories and Early Novels
Source: The Big Sleep: A Novel
Source: The Big Sleep: A Novel
Source: The Big Sleep & Farewell, My Lovely
Source: The Big Sleep: A Novel
“You're broke, eh?" I been shaking two nickels together for a month, trying to get them to mate.”
Source: The Big Sleep: A Novel
Source: The Big Sleep & Farewell, My Lovely
“One would think a writer would be happy here — if a writer is ever happy anywhere.”
“I belonged in Idle Valley like a pearl onion on a banana split.”
Source: The Long Goodbye: A Novel
Source: Raymond Chandler Speaking
Source: Selected Letters of Raymond Chandler
Source: Raymond Chandler Speaking
“The wet air was as cold as the ashes of love.”
Source: The Big Sleep & Farewell, My Lovely
“She smelled the way the Taj Mahal looks by moonlight.”
Source: Later Novels & Other Writings
Source: The Simple Art of Murder