Raymond Chandler Quotes
1888–1959 England
Raymond Thornton Chandler (23 July 1888 – 26 March 1959) was an American-British novelist and screenwriter who specialized in the crime fiction genre.
- England
- Novelists
- Screenwriters
- Short story writers
Also known as: Chandler, Raymond, Farewell My Lovely, High Window, Little Sister, Long Goodbye, Playback
Random Raymond Chandler quote
55 quotes
The truth of art keeps science from becoming inhuman, and the truth of science keeps art from becoming ridiculous.
There are two kinds of truth: the truth that lights the way and the truth that warms the heart.
The girl slept on, motionless, in that curled-up looseness achieved by some women and all cats.
It seemed like a nice neighborhood to have bad habits in.
The Big Sleep (1939)
A few locks of dry white hair clung to his scalp, like wild flowers fighting for life on a bare rock.
The Big Sleep (1939)
The plants filled the place, a forest of them, with nasty meaty leaves and stalks like the newly washed fingers of dead men.
The Big Sleep (1939)
"A nice state of affairs when a man has to indulge his vices by proxy."
The Big Sleep (1939)
The dilemma of the critic has always been that if he knows enough to speak with authority, he knows too much to speak with detachment.
A blonde to make a bishop kick a hole in a stained glass window.
Farewell, My Lovely (1940)
When a woman is a really good driver she is just about perfect.
Playback (1957)
You can always tell a detective on TV. He never takes his hat off.
Playback (1958)
It's so hard for women—even nice women—to realize that their bodies are not irresistible.
The Big Sleep (1939)
I like smooth shiny girls, hardboiled and loaded with sin.
I like games of chance, including women.
Neither of the two people in the room paid any attention to the way I came in, although only one of them was dead.
The Big Sleep (1939)
She sighed. "All men are the same."
"So are all women—after the first nine."
The old man nodded, as if his neck was afraid of the weight of his head.
The Big Sleep (1939)
The modern film tries too hard to be real. Its techniques of illusion are so perfect that it requires no contribution from the audience but a mouthful of popcorn.
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.
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.