Noir Quotes

• When I pair food and wine, I start with the food. If I have a beautiful roasted bird, I might choose a Cabernet or Pinot Noir, or maybe a Syrah, depending on the sauce and what is in my cellar.

  Jacques Pepin

  Beautiful, Wine, Bird

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• Film noir has a mood that everyone can feel. It’s people in trouble, at night, with a little bit of wind and the right kind of music. It’s a beautiful thing.

  David Lynch

  Beautiful, Night, Wind

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• I pity those born of the lighter side. They have no understanding of how seductive cruelty is. The music made out of screams and pleas for mercy. Mmmm. Nothing better. (Noir)

  Sherrilyn Kenyon

  Seductive, Understanding, Sides

  Sherrilyn Kenyon (2010). “Dream Warrior”, p.72, Macmillan

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• The cheaper the crook, the gaudier the patter.

  Dashiell Hammett

  Crooks, Sam Spade, Falcon

  Dashiell Hammett (2007). “Vintage Hammett”, p.151, Vintage

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• The noir hero is a knight in blood caked armor. He's dirty and he does his best to deny the fact that he's a hero the whole time.

  Frank Miller

  Dirty, Hero, Artist

  "Fictional character: Penelope Garcia". "Criminal Minds: True Night" (TV Series), www.imdb.com. 2007.

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• One difference between film noir and more straightforward crime pictures is that noir is more open to human flaws and likes to embed them in twisty plot lines.

  Roger Ebert

  Plot Lines, Differences, Likes

  Roger Ebert's review of "The Samaritan", www.rogerebert.com. May 16, 2012.

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• There is something missing in a lot of digital filmmaking, something I call "poetic reality." That's something you see played out in film noir, where the technique establishes the mood.

  Vilmos Zsigmond

  Reality, Missing, Technique

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• That's what noir feels like to me. It feels like some kind of recurring dream, with very strong archetypes operating. You know, the guilty girl being pursued, falling, all kinds of stuff that we see in our dreams all the time

  Brian De Palma

  Girl, Dream, Strong

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• There were some things that I found I really enjoyed singing about; like, on the title track, there's this film-noir character of a woman who's sort of losing it in a room.

  Diana Krall

  Character, Track, Singing

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• I think the original Matrix was really incredible. It was so original and it did so many innovative things with film. It was a much bigger film. Bound was just a smaller film. It was kind of like an old noir film

  Gina Gershon

  Thinking, Kind, Film

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• That was certainly true the first time, when I did Body Heat, the first movie that I directed. I was looking for a vessel to tell a certain kind of story, and I was a huge fan of Film Noir, and what I liked about it was that it was so extreme in style.

  Lawrence Kasdan

  Style, Fans, Stories

  Interview with Stax, www.ign.com. March 21, 2003.

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• But, number one, I think traditional noir doesn't work in contemporary storytelling because we don't live in that world anymore

  Brian De Palma

  Thinking, Numbers, World

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• Noir is dead for me because historically, I think it's a simple view. I've taken it as far as it can go. I think I've expanded on it a great deal, taken it further than any other American novelist.

  James Ellroy

  Taken, Simple, Thinking

  James Ellroy (2012). “Conversations with James Ellroy”, p.54, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• I'm a huge fan of Cabernet and Bordeaux, and am passionate about Pinot Noir and Burgundies.

  Raymond E. Feist

  Pinot Noir, Fans, Passionate

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• I wouldn't presume to define noir - if we could define it, we wouldn't need to use a French word for it - but it seems to me it's more a way of looking at the world than what one sees.

  Lawrence Block

  Needs, Use, World

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• Like art, love, and pornography, noir is hard to define, but you know it when you see it. For the purposes of the book and my longtime working understanding and definition of it, noir stories are bleak, existential, alienated, pessimistic tales about losers--people who are so morally challenged that they cannot help but bring about their own ruin.

  Otto Penzler

  Art, Book, People

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• Flawed characters... a ticking clock... morally questionable acts on all sides... moody, evocative art... oh yeah, this the stuff crime noir fans love!

  Christos Gage

  Art, Character, Fans

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• Experience has taught me never to trust a policeman. Just when you think one's all right, he turns legit.

  Ben Maddow

  Trust, Thinking, Taught

  "Fictional character: Doc Riedenschneider". "The Asphalt Jungle", 1950.

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• It's a noir world. Unfair things happen.

  Rob Thomas

  World, Unfair, Happens

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• I think the great unspoken theme in noir fiction is male self-pity. It pervades noir movies.

  James Ellroy

  Thinking, Self, Males

  "The Onion talks to crime-fiction kingpin James Ellroy". Interview by John Krewson, www.avclub.com. November 20, 1996.

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• I got into reading a lot of noir and a lot of thrillers as well, and I really admired the plotting about those and the way that they can surprise you. And obviously to surprise people and to have twists in the tale, you have to plan quite carefully.

  Joe Abercrombie

  Reading, People, Twists

  "GeekDad Interviews Fantasy Author Joe Abercrombie". GeekDad Interview, www.wired.com. July 24, 2009.

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• The noir universe hates do-gooders so it tries to pound them and punish them.

  Duane Swierczynski

  Hate, Trying, Pounds

  "Duane Swierczynski dreams up a violent new cocktail for The Black Hood". Interview with Derrick Sanskrit, www.avclub.com. October 9, 2015.

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• I admire hard-bitten, wisecracking realism of Ida Lupino and the film noir heroines. I'm sick of simpering white girls with their princess fantasies.

  Camille Paglia

  Girl, Princess, White

  Camille Paglia (2011). “Vamps & Tramps: New Essays”, p.12, Vintage

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• In Greek tragedy, they fall from great heights. In noir, they fall from the curb.

  Dennis Lehane

  Fall, Greek, Tragedy

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• God made Cabernet Sauvignon, whereas the Devil made Pinot Noir.

  Andre Tchelistcheff

  Devil, Pinot Noir, Cabernet

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