124 Quotes by Ross Macdonald

The surprise with which a detective novel concludes should set up tragic vibrations which run backward through the entire structure.

As I stood there absorbing Hammett's novel, the slot machines at the back of the shop were clanking and whirring, and in the billiard room upstairs the perpetual poker game was being played.

There are certain families whose members should all live in different towns - different states, if possible - and write each other letters once a year.

How can a man help breaking the law when he don't have money to live on?

I had reached the point when I could not see anything clearly ahead, I needed help, and I got it.

My half-suppressed Canadian years, my whole childhood and youth, rose like a corpse from the bottom of the sea to confront me.

The Archer novels are about various kinds of brokenness.

Losing Hidden Valley would be not a good thing. No question he's in a difficult position, certainly. We have an opportunity to address that situation through the regional master plan.

There's nothing wrong with Southern California that a rise in the ocean level wouldn't cure