559 Quotes by Raymond Chandler

I have a sense of exile from thought, a nostalgia of the quiet room and balanced mind. I am a writer, and there comes a time when that which I write has to belong to me, has to be written alone and in silence, with no one looking over my shoulder, no one telling me a better way to write it. It doesn't have to be great writing, it doesn't even have to be terribly good. It just has to be mine.

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

What did it matter where you lay once you were dead? In a dirty sump or in a marble tower on top of a high hill? You were dead, you were sleeping the big sleep, you were not bothered by things like that... On the way downtown I stopped at a bar and had a couple of double Scotches. They didn’t do me any good. All they did was make me think of Silver-Wig, and I never saw her again.

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

Her eyes narrowed until they were a faint greenish glitter, like a forest pool far back in the shadow of trees.

Gano muchísima pasta. Tengo que ganar muchísima pasta para untar a los tipos a los que tengo que untar para ganar muchísima pasta y untar así a los tipos que tengo que untar.

The solution, once revealed, must seem to have been inevitable. At least half of all the mystery novels published violate this law."(Casual Notes on the Mystery Novel, 1949)

down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid...

down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid.