It was a blonde. A blonde to make a bishop kick a hole in a stained glass window. She was wearing street clothes that looked black and white, and a hat to match and she was a little haughty, but not t...
I was as hollow and empty as the spaces between stars.
I was as empty of life as a scarecrow’s pockets. I
I suppose you do this to all the clients, she said softly.
I hung up and fed myself a slug of Old Forester to brace my nerves for the interview.
I caught the rest of it in one of those snob columns in the society section of the paper. I don't read them often, only when I run out of things to dislike......I threw the paper into the corner and t...
How can such a hard man be so gentle? she asked wonderingly.If I wasn't hard, I wouldn't be alive. If I couldn't ever be gentle, I wouldn't deserve to be alive.
He’s just a lost dog, she added with a cool smile. Perhaps you can find a home for him. He’s housebroken—more or less. And
He looked around and yawned. I haven’t been sleeping well. It’s nice in here. But after a while the lushes will fill the place up and talk loud and laugh and the goddam women will start waving their h...
Do I have to be polite? I asked. Or can I just be natural?
After a little while I felt a little better, but very little. I needed a drink, I needed a lot of life insurance, I needed a vacation, I needed a home in the country. What I had was a coat, a hat and...
At least half the mystery novels published violate the law that the solution once revealed must seem to be inevitable.
You just slept the big sleep, not caring about the nastiness of how you died or where you fell.
We have the whitest kitchens and the most shining bathrooms in the world. But in the lovely white kitchen the average [person] can’t produce a meal fit to eat, and the lovely shining bathroom is mostl...
Very methodical guy, Marlowe. Nothing must interfere with his coffee technique. Not even a gun in the hand of a desperate character.
Thick cunning played on her face, had no fun there and went somewhere else.
The tragedy of life, is not that the beautiful things die young, but that they grow old and mean.
The thin man had a tight voice that expected to be lied to. (The King in Yellow)
The music gushed from the loudspeaker in a swirl of shadowed melody. Since Vienna died, all waltzes are shadowed. (I'll be waiting)
The most durable thing in writing isstyle. It is a projection of personality and you have