Sam Spade Quotes

• I don t mind a reasonable amount of trouble.

  Dashiell Hammett

  Mind, Trouble, Film Noir

  Dashiell Hammett (2010). “The Maltese Falcon”, p.61, Vintage Crime/Black Lizard

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• The cheaper the crook, the gaudier the patter.

  Dashiell Hammett

  Crooks, Noir, Falcon

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

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• 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 Spade

  Dashiell Hammett

  Men, Organization, Differences

  The Maltese Falcon ch. 20 (1930)

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• Joel Cairo: You always have a very smooth explanation ready. Sam Spade: What do you want me to do, learn to stutter?

  Dashiell Hammett

  Cairo, Want, Smooth

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• Brigid: I haven't lived a good life - I've been bad, worse than you could know.
  Spade: That's good, because if you actually were as innocent as you pretend to be, we'd never get anywhere.

  Dashiell Hammett

  Good Life, Innocent, Spades

  "Fictional characters: Sam Spade, Brigid O'Shaughnessy". "The Maltese Falcon", 1941.

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• You're about to meet a new great dame of crime fiction in Death Was the Other Woman. Linda L. Richards does a stunning job in creating a character with a voice and eye right out of a 1930s L.A. hard-boiled classic: guns and gams, booze and bodies, peepers and perps. Move over, Sam Spade: Kitty Pangborn is on the case.

  Linda Fairstein

  Jobs, Moving, Character

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• Kinsey Millhone is a female Sam Spade; a thorough professional, a loner, clear-headed and unsentimental.

  Lucille Kallen

  Loner, Female, Thorough

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