James M. Cain Quotes

1892–1977 United States

James Mallahan Cain (July 1, 1892 – October 27, 1977) was an American novelist, journalist and screenwriter. He is considered a progenitor of the hardboiled school of American crime fiction.

United States
Journalists
Novelists
Playwrights
Screenwriters

Random James M. Cain quote

25 quotes

Stealing a man’s wife, that’s nothing, but stealing his car, that’s larceny.

The Postman Always Rings Twice (1934)

That’s all it takes, one drop of fear, to curdle love into hate.

Double Indemnity (1936)

He might be asleep, but even asleep he looked like he knew more than most guys awake.

The Postman Always Rings Twice (1934)

A receptionist is a lazy dame that can’t do anything on earth, and wants to sit out front where everybody can watch her do it.

Mildred Pierce (1941)

I loved her like a rabbit loves a rattlesnake.

Double Indemnity (1936)

The hand that holds the money cracks the whip.

Mildred Pierce (1941)

They threw me off the hay truck about noon.

The Postman Always Rings Twice (1934)

Love, when you get fear in it, it’s not love any more. It’s hate.

The Postman Always Rings Twice (1934)

We only have two kinds of weather in California, magnificent and unusual.

Under those blue pajamas was a shape to set a man nuts.

Double Indemnity (1936)

He was enthusiastic about everything, but when she came in with the pie he grew positively lyrical.

Mildred Pierce (1941)

We're the friendliest enemies that ever were.

The Postman Always Rings Twice (1934)

Restaurant, hey. That's what I've got. Whole goddam country lives selling hot dogs to each other.

The Postman Always Rings Twice (1934)

By nine, Mildred was powdered, puffed, perfumed, and patted to that state of semi-transparency that a woman seems to achieve when she is really dressed to go out.

Mildred Pierce (1941)

She was a little given to rehearsing things in her mind, and having imaginary triumphs over people who had upset her in one way and another.

Mildred Pierce (1941)

If you have to do it, you can do it.

Mildred Pierce (1941)

I had killed a man, for money and a woman. I didn’t have the money and I didn’t have the woman.

Double Indemnity (1936)

"Have you got a little bit of gypsy in you?"
"Gypsy? I had rings in my ears when I was born."

The Postman Always Rings Twice (1934)

I kissed her. Her eyes were shining up at me like two blue stars. It was like being in church.

The Postman Always Rings Twice (1934)

"Tomorrow night, if I come back, there’ll be kisses. Lovely ones, Frank. Not drunken kisses. Kisses with dreams in them. Kisses that come from life, not death."
"It's a date."

The Postman Always Rings Twice (1934)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: James M. Cain (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.