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Raymond Chandler

Raymond Chandler Quotes

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Famous Raymond Chandler Quotes

“Writers who get written about become self-conscious. They develop a regrettable habit of looking at themselves through the eyes of other people. They are no longer alone, they have an investment in critical praise, and they think they must protect it. This leads to a diffusion of effort. The writer watches himself as he works. He grows more subtle and he pays for it by loss of organic dash.”

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Book:Selected Letters of Raymond Chandler
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“I'm a very smart guy. I haven't a feeling or a scruple in the world. All I have the itch for is money. I am so money greedy that for twenty-five bucks a day and expenses, mostly gasoline and whisky, I do my thinking myself, what there is of it; I risk my whole future, the hatred of the cops . . . I dodge bullets and eat saps, and say thank you very much, if you have any more trouble, I hope you'll think of me, I'll just leave one of my cards in case anything comes up.”

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Author:Raymond Chandler
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“I think a man ought to get drunk at least twice a year just on principle, so he won't let himself get snotty about it.”

ThinkingMenYearsPrinciplesOughtDrinkDrinkingAlcoholDrunkBeerDrankLiquorCocktailsDrinking AlcoholFunny DrinkingBeer DrinkingDrinking BeerGreat DrinkingFunny AlcoholAlcohol DrinkingDrinking FunnyGreat AlcoholFunny BeerAlcohol And LifeFunny Beer DrinkingGetting DrunkLiquor FunnyCocktail DrinksDon't Drink AlcoholDrunk Man
Book:The World of Raymond Chandler: In His Own Words
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“It is a mass language only in the same sense that its baseball slang is born of baseball players. That is, it is a language which is being molded by writers to do delicate things and yet be within the grasp of superficially educated people. It is not a natural growth, much as its proletarian writers would like to think so. But compared with it at its best, English has reached the Alexandrian stage of formalism and decay.”

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Book:Later Novels & Other Writings
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“There are people who can write their memoirs with a reasonable amount of honesty, and there are people who simply cannot take themselves seriously enough. I think I might be the first to admit that the sort of reticence which prevents a man from exploiting his own personality is really an inverted sort of egotism.”

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Book:Raymond Chandler Speaking
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“Undoubtedly the stories about them [hard-boiled detectives] had a fantastic element. Such things happened, but not so rapidly, nor to so close-knit a group of people, nor within so narrow a frame of logic. This was inevitable because the demand was for constant action; if you stopped to think you were lost. When in doubt, have a man come through a door with a gun in his hand.”

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Author:Raymond Chandler
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