Throw up into your typewriter every morning. Clean up every noon.
Ability is what you're capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it.
I looked at my watch. Nine fifty-four. Time to go home and get your slippers on and play over a game of chess. Time for a tall cool drink and a long quiet pipe. Time to sit with your feet up and think...
I like bars just after they open for the evening. When the air inside is still cool and clean and everything is shiny and the barkeep is giving himself that last look in the mirror to see if his tie i...
He was a guy who talked with commas, like a heavy novel. Over the phone anyway.
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.
Hammett wrote at first (and almost to the end) for people with a sharp, aggressive attitude to life. They were not afraid of the seamy side of things; they lived there. Violence did not dismay them; i...
In writing a novel, when in doubt, have two guys come through the door with guns.
Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid. He is the hero; he is everything. He must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man....
Real cities have something else, some individual bony structure under the muck. Los Angeles has Hollywood -- and hates it. It ought to consider itself damn lucky. Without Hollywood it would be a mail...
Mr Cobb was my escort. Such a nice escort, Mr Cobb. So attentive. You should see him sober. should see him sober. Somebody should see him sober. I mean, just for the record. So it could become a part...
If I wasn’t hard, I wouldn’t be alive. If I couldn’t ever be gentle, I wouldn’t deserve to be alive. I
I don't mind your showing me your legs. They're very swell legs and it's a pleasure to make their acquaintace. I don't mind if you don't like my manners. They're pretty bad. I grieve over them during...
His voice was the elaborately casual voice of the tough guy in pictures. Pictures have made them all like that.
He didn't know the right people. That's all a police record means in this rotten crime-ridden country.
No estoy dispuesto a hablar, Eddie. ¿Por qué iba a hacerlo?Dejó la pistola sobre el escritorio y la golpeó con la mano abierta.- Esto -dijo-. Y yo podría hacer que le resultara provechoso.- Ya, eso su...
The minute you try to talk business with him he takes the attitude that he is a gentleman and a scholar, and the moment you try to approach him on the level of his moral integrity he starts to talk bu...
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 th...
The French have a phrase for it. The bastards have a phrase for everything and they are always right. To say goodbye is to die a little.
If I wasn't hard, I wouldn't be alive.If I couldn't ever be gentle, I wouldn't deserve to be alive.