Raymond Chandler Quotes - Page 7

Quotes about:

• At least half the mystery novels published violate the law that the solution, once revealed, must seem to be inevitable.

  Raymond Chandler

  Book, Reading, Writing

  57 Copy quote

• Its big men are mostly little men with fancy offices and a lot of money. A great many of them are stupid little men, with reach-me-down brains, small-town arrogance and a sort of animal knack of smelling out the taste of the stupidest part of the public. They have played in luck so long that they have come to mistake luck for enlightenment." - on Hollywood

  Raymond Chandler

  Mistake, Stupid, Animal

  4 Copy quote

• The tragedy of life, Howard, is not that the beautiful die young, but that they grow old and mean. It will not happen to me.

  Raymond Chandler

  Beautiful, Mean, Tragedy

  Raymond Chandler (2002). “The Long Goodbye: A Novel”, p.302, Vintage Crime/Black Lizard

  4 Copy quote

• Everything a writer learns about the art or craft of fiction takes just a little away from his need or desire to write at all. In the end he knows all the tricks and has nothing to say.

  Raymond Chandler

  Art, Writing, Desire

  Raymond Chandler (2002). “Trouble Is My Business: A Novel”, p.5, Vintage Crime/Black Lizard

  11 Copy quote

• Under the thinning fog the surf curled and creamed, almost without sound, like a thought trying to form inself on the edge of consciousness.

  Raymond Chandler

  Fog, Trying, Sound

  raymond chandler (1966). “the big sleep”

  9 Copy quote

• California, the department store state.

  Raymond Chandler

  California, Dignity, States

  1949 The Little Sister, ch.13.

  6 Copy quote

• Love interest nearly always weakens a mystery because it introduces a type of suspense that is antagonistic to the detective's struggle to solve a problem.

  Raymond Chandler

  Struggle, Writing, Suspense

  Raymond Chandler, Dorothy Gardiner, Kathrine Sorley Walker (1977). “Raymond Chandler Speaking”, p.70, Univ of California Press

  9 Copy quote

• One would think a writer would be happy here — if a writer is ever happy anywhere.

  Raymond Chandler

  Thinking, Would Be, Ifs

  "The Long Goodbye: A Novel".

  4 Copy quote

• LA doesn't have the heart of a paper cup.

  Raymond Chandler

  Heart, Paper, Cups

  4 Copy quote

• You can't have everything, even in California

  Raymond Chandler

  Inspiration, California

  Raymond Chandler, Tom Hiney, Frank MacShane (2002). “The Raymond Chandler Papers: Selected Letters and Nonfiction, 1909-1959”, p.250, Grove Press

  4 Copy quote

• Everything written with vitality expresses that vitality: there are no dull subjects, only dull minds.

  Raymond Chandler

  Mind, Vitality, Dull

  Raymond Chandler (2002). “The Simple Art of Murder”, p.16, Vintage Crime/Black Lizard

  7 Copy quote

• If you liked a book, don't meet the author

  Raymond Chandler

  Book, Literature, Ifs

  4 Copy quote

• Shake your business up and pour it. I haven't got all day.

  Raymond Chandler

  Big Sleep, Shakes

  "The Big Sleep and Other Novels".

  6 Copy quote

• The reading public is intellectually adolescent at best, and it is obvious that what is called ''significant literature'' will only be sold to this public by exactly the same methods as are used to sell it toothpaste, cathartics and automobiles.

  Raymond Chandler

  Reading, Society, Literature

  Raymond Chandler, Tom Hiney, Frank MacShane (2002). “The Raymond Chandler Papers: Selected Letters and Nonfiction, 1909-1959”, p.65, Grove Press

  6 Copy quote

• She bent over me again. Blood began to move around in me, like a prospective tenant looking over a house.

  Raymond Chandler

  Moving, Blood, House

  Raymond Chandler (2011). “The Big Sleep & Farewell, My Lovely”, p.224, Modern Library

  4 Copy quote

• Would you convey my compliments to the purist who reads your proofs and tell him or her that I write in a sort of broken-down patois which is something like the way a Swiss waiter talks, and that when I split an infinitive, God damn it, I split it so it will stay split, and when I interrupt the velvety smoothness of my more or less literate syntax with a few sudden words of bar-room vernacular, that is done with the eyes wide open and the mind relaxed but attentive.

  Raymond Chandler

  God, Writing, Eye

  Letter to Edward Weeks, 18 Jan. 1947, in F. MacShane Life of Raymond Chandler (1976) ch. 7

  7 Copy quote

• Could she *be* anymore out of my league?

  Raymond Chandler

  League, Dating, Romance

  4 Copy quote

• Dames lie about anything - just for practice.

  Raymond Chandler

  Lying, Practice, Dames

  Raymond Chandler (2014). “The World of Raymond Chandler: In His Own Words”, p.210, Vintage

  7 Copy quote

• There are no vital and significant forms of art; there is only art, and precious little of that.

  Raymond Chandler

  Art, Littles, Significant

  Raymond Chandler (2002). “The Simple Art of Murder”, p.5, Vintage Crime/Black Lizard

  7 Copy quote

• A check girl in peach-bloom Chinese pajamas came over to take my hat and disapprove of my clothes. She had eyes like strange sins.

  Raymond Chandler

  Girl, Eye, Clothes

  Raymond Chandler (2002). “The High Window: A Novel”, p.161, Vintage Crime/Black Lizard

  6 Copy quote

• I've found that there are only two kinds that are any good: slang that has established itself in the language, and slang that you make up yourself. Everything else is apt to be passe before it gets into print.

  Raymond Chandler

  Two, Language, Kind

  Raymond Chandler, Dorothy Gardiner, Kathrine Sorley Walker (1977). “Raymond Chandler Speaking”, p.80, Univ of California Press

  8 Copy quote

• All reading for pleasure is entertainment.

  Raymond Chandler

  Reading, Entertainment, Pleasure

  6 Copy quote

• All art at some time and in some manner becomes mass entertainment, and if it does not it dies and is forgotten.

  Raymond Chandler

  Art, Doe, Entertainment

  Raymond Chandler, Tom Hiney, Frank MacShane (2002). “The Raymond Chandler Papers: Selected Letters and Nonfiction, 1909-1959”, p.71, Grove Press

  4 Copy quote

• I'm all done with hating you. It's all washed out of me. I hate people hard, but I don't hate them very long.

  Raymond Chandler

  Hate, Long, People

  Raymond Chandler, Geoffrey Household, Robert Bloch (1977). “Great stories of mystery and suspense”

  7 Copy quote

• Above all never forget that a marriage is in one way very much like a newspaper. It has to be made fresh every damn day of every damn year.

  Raymond Chandler

  Marriage, Years, Way

  Raymond Chandler, Tom Hiney, Frank MacShane (2002). “The Raymond Chandler Papers: Selected Letters and Nonfiction, 1909-1959”, p.217, Grove Press

  6 Copy quote

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