57 Quotes by James M. Cain

  • Author James M. Cain
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    If your writing doesn`t keep you up at night, it won`t keep anyone else up either".

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  • Author James M. Cain
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    O.K." "Gee I'm glad." "Me too. I'm so sick of hot dogs and beer and apple pie with cheese on the side I could heave it all in the river." "You'll love it, Frank. We'll get a place up in the mountains, where it's cool, and then, after I get my act ready, we can go all over the world with it. Go as we please, do as we please, and have plenty of money to spend. Have you got a little bit of gypsy in you?" "Gypsy? I had rings in my ears when I was born.

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  • Author James M. Cain
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    If you can't write like New York, you have no business living in New York and making New York the locale of your stories.

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  • Author James M. Cain
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    I make no conscious effort to be tough, or hard-boiled, or grim, or any of the things I am usually called.

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  • Author James M. Cain
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    When it’s too good, you do it over again. Too good is too easy. If it’s too easy you have to worry. If you’re not lying awake at night worrying about it, the reader isn’t going to, either. I always know that when I get a good night’s sleep, the next day I’m not going to get any work done. Writing a novel is like working on foreign policy. There are problems to be solved. It’s not all inspirational.

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  • Author James M. Cain
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    You usually can tell when a writer is going down hill by the size of his liquor bill.

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  • Author James M. Cain
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    She was a little given to rehearsing things in her mind, and having imaginary triumphs over people who had upset her in one way and another.

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