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Raymond Chandler

Raymond Chandler Quotes

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Famous Raymond Chandler Quotes

“The wise screen writer is he who wears his second-best suit, artistically speaking, and doesn't take things too much to heart. He should have a touch of cynicism, but only a touch. The complete cynic is as useless to Hollywood as he is to himself. He should do the best he can without straining at it. He should be scrupulously honest about his work, but he should not expect scrupulous honesty in return. He won't get it. And when he has had enough, he should say goodbye with a smile, because for all he knows he may want to go back.”

KnowsWantShouldHeartMayEnoughToo MuchWiseHonestHonestyReturnShould HaveHollywoodScreensSuitsUselessGoodbyeCynicismDo The BestSaying GoodbyeHad EnoughCynicSecond BestSmile Because
Author:Raymond Chandler
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“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.”

KnowsMeanUsePoliticalHateSexCrimeDependsPressesConstantFinancialNewspapersAdvertisingMaking MoneyPropagandaExceptionHonorableScandalRevenueCirculationFree PressInnuendoSensationalism
Book:The Long Goodbye: A Novel
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“There's always something to do if you don't have to work or consider the cost. It's no real fun but the rich don't know that. They never had any. They never want anything very hard except maybe somebody else's wife and that's a pretty pale desire compared with the way a plumber's wife wants new curtains for the living room.”

IfsKnowsWayWantRealHardDesireFunRoomsRichWifeCostPaleCurtainsLiving RoomPlumber
Book:The Long Goodbye: A Novel
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“I'm a licensed private investigator and have been for quite a while. I'm a lone wolf, unmarried, getting middle-aged, and not rich. I've been in jail more than once and I don't do divorce business. I like liquor and women and chess and a few other things. The cops don't like me too well, but I know a couple I get along with. I'm a native son, born in Santa Rosa, both parents dead, no brothers or sisters, and when I get knocked off in a dark alley sometime, if it happens, as it could to anyone in my business, nobody will feel that the bottom has dropped out of his or her life.”

IfsKnowsFeelsWellsHas BeensHappensParentBornDarkRichMiddleSonBrotherCoupleBottomDivorceChessLike MeNativeJailCopSantaLiquorAlleysLoneMiddle AgedUnmarriedInvestigatorsRosaDon't Like MeLone WolfDark AlleysNative Son
Book:The Long Goodbye: A Novel
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“The private detective of fiction is a fantastic creation who acts and speaks like a real man. He can be completely realistic in every sense but one, that one sense being that in life as we know it such a man would not be a private detective.”

KnowsMenRealSpeakFictionCreationFantasticRealisticDetectivesReal Men
Book:The Raymond Chandler Papers: Selected Letters and Nonfiction, 1909-1959
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“The boys with their feet on the desks know that the easiest murder case in the world to break is the one somebody tried to get very cute with; the one that really bothers them is the murder somebody only thought of two minutes before he pulled it off.”

KnowsWorldTwoBoysBreakCasesFeetMinutesMurderBotherCuteDesksVery CuteMurder Victims
Book:The Chandler Collection: Pearls are a nuisance ; Smart-aleck kill ; Killer in the rain
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“There is something about the literary life that repels me, all this desperate building of castles on cobwebs, the long-drawn acrimonious struggle to make something important which we all know will be gone forever in a few years, the miasma of failure which is to me almost as offensive as the cheap gaudiness of popular success.”

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Book:Raymond Chandler Speaking
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