84 Quotes About Hard-boiled

I opened the other envelope. It contained a photograph of a girl. The pose suggested a natural ease, or a lot of experience in being photographed. It showed darkish hair which might possibly have been red, a wide clear forehead, serious eyes, high cheekbones, nervous nostrils and a mouth which was not giving anything away. It was a fine-drawn, almost a taut face, and not a happy one

From 30 feet away she looked like a lot of class. From 10 feet away she looked like something made up to be seen from 30 feet away.

I'm not a young man. I'm old, tired and full of no coffee.

...the sun rose each morning to stare into my face with the blank but touching gaze of a lovely retarded child.

Sometimes it's a dog-eat-dog world and the rest of the time it's the other way around.

Guns never settle anything, I said. They are just a fast curtain to a bad second act

She made love with the freshness of an impatient virgin and the ingenuity of a sex-scarred whore.

The voice on the telephone seemed to be sharp and peremptory, but I didn't hear too well what it said, partly because I was only half awake and partly because I was holding the receiver upside down

The subject was as easy to spot as a kangaroo in a dinner jacket