Dashiell Hammett
I haven't any sort of plans for the future but I reckon things will work out in some manner.Collection: Future
You got to look on the bright side, even if there ain't one.
I deserve all the love you can spare me. And I want a lot more than I deserve.
I've been as bad an influence on American literature as anyone I can think of.
Feed the lettuce to the bunny and eat the bunny.
With what dope I got I think it fills me in pretty well.
Strictly speaking, there are no real substitutes for sexual satisfaction.
People always say things like, Oh, well, he was suffering so much that he was better off dying. But that's not true. You're always better off living.
The roof might fall in; anything could happen.
Thanks for the information about what we call business.
She seems to be having a pretty good time despite her worrying. That's Lily.
Our lawyers had their chat with the Supreme Court Justice, and promised to repast the chat to other members of the Supreme Court to find out whether they wanted to hear us out.
Looks like she's been slapping the kid again.
It's sometimes better to pretend I don't hear the sound of somebody in the nearby woods with a shotgun.
It's awfully easy to be in love in jail.
I like women. I really like women.
I have not killed anyone. They will not let me.
I don't know much about him; never heard him say more than nope or yup.
Another man whose social life has ruined him.
The problem with putting two and two together is that sometimes you get four, and sometimes you get twenty-two.Collection: Two
You don't pay a prostitute for sex, you pay her to leave afterwards.Collection: Sex
The outcome of successful planning always looks like luck to saps.Collection: Successful
What I try to do is write a story about a detective rather than a detective story. Keeping the reader fooled until the last, possible moment is a good trick and I usually try to play it, but I can't attach more than secondary importance to it. The puzzle isn't so interesting to me as the behavior of the detective attacking it.Collection: Writing
The people who lie the most are nearly always the clumsiest at it, and they're easier to fool with lies than most people, too. You'd think they'd be on the look-out for lies, but they seem to be the very ones that will believe almost anything at all.Collection: Lying
The cheaper the crook, the gaudier the patter.Collection: Crooks
Who shot him? I asked. The grey man scratched the back of his neck and said: Somebody with a gun.Collection: Gun
My way of learning is to heave a wild and unpredictable monkey-wrench into the machinery.Collection: Monkeys
I once knew a man who stole a Ferris Wheel.Collection: Men
I haven't laughed so much over anything since the hogs ate my kid brother.Collection: Brother
I don t mind a reasonable amount of trouble.Collection: Mind
Listen, darling, tomorrow I'll buy you a whole lot of detective stories, but don't worry your pretty little head over mysteries tonight.Collection: Worry
To get what he wanted, a man had to give other people what they wanted.Collection: Inspirational
When you write, you want fame, fortune and personal satisfaction. You want to write what you want to write and feel it's good, and you want this to go on for hundreds of years. You're not likely ever to get all these things, and you're not likely to give up writing and commit suicide if you don't, but that is -- and should be -- your goal. Anything else is kind of piddling.Collection: Suicide
If you have a story that seems worth telling, and you think you can tell it worthily, then the thing for you to do is to tell it, regardless of whether it has to do with sex, sailors or mounted policemen.Collection: Sex
He felt like somebody had taken the lid off life and let him see the works.Collection: Taken
Nora: "How do you feel?" Nick: "Terrible. I must've gone to bed sober.Collection: Gone
Talking is something you can't do judiciously unless you keep in practice.Collection: Talking
Most things in San Francisco can be bought or taken.Collection: Taken
The boy spoke two words, the first a short guttural verb, the second “you.Collection: Boys
A lot of fancier yarns come from people trying to tell the truth. It’s not easy once you’re out of the habit.Collection: Yarn
I found I was repeating myself. It is the beginning of the end when you discover you have style.Collection: Style
Strictly speaking, there are no real substitutes for sexual satisfactionCollection: Real
Joel Cairo: You always have a very smooth explanation ready. Sam Spade: What do you want me to do, learn to stutter?Collection: Cairo
She grinned at me. 'You got types?' 'Only you darling - lanky brunettes with wicked jaws.Collection: Wicked
The face she made at me was probably meant for a smile. Whatever it was, it beat me. I was afraid she'd do it again, so I surrenderedCollection: Faces
When a man's partner is killed he's supposed to do something about it. It doesn't make any difference what you thought of him. He was your partner and you're supposed to do something about it. Then it happens we were in the detective business. Well, when one of your organization gets killed it's bad business to let the killer get away with it. It's bad all around-bad for that one organization, bad for every detective everywhere. Sam SpadeCollection: Men
You're drunk, and I'm drunk, and I'm just exactly drunk enough to tell you anything you want to know. That's the kind of girl I am. If I like a person, I'll tell them anything they want to know. Just ask me. Go ahead, ask me.Collection: Girl
...What disturbed him was the discovery that in sensibly ordering his affairs he had got out of step, and not into step, with Life.Collection: Discovery
He looked rather pleasantly, like a blonde satan.Collection: Blonde