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The Simple Art of Murder QUOTES

The Simple Art of Murder QUOTES

1 " There are no vital and significant forms of art; there is only art, and precious little of that. "

― Raymond Chandler , The Simple Art of Murder

2 " You can make a lot of mistakes in just one lifetime. (I'll Be Waiting) "

― Raymond Chandler , The Simple Art of Murder

3 " Hammett gave murder back to the kind of people that commit it for reasons, not just to provide a corpse; and with the means at hand, not hand-wrought dueling pistols, curare and tropical fish. "

― Raymond Chandler , The Simple Art of Murder

4 " All language begins with speech, and the speech of common men at that, but when it develops to the point of becoming a literary medium it only looks like speech. "

― Raymond Chandler , The Simple Art of Murder

5 " Everything written with vitality expresses that vitality; there are no dull subjects, only dull minds. "

― Raymond Chandler , The Simple Art of Murder

6 " Personally I like the English style better. It is not quite so brittle, and the people as a rule, just wear clothes and drink drinks. There is more sense of background, as if Cheesecake Manor really existed all around and not just the part the camera sees; there are more long walks over the Downs and the characters don’t all try to behave as if they had just been tested by MGM. The English may not always be the best writers in the world, but they are incomparably the best dull writers. "

― Raymond Chandler , The Simple Art of Murder

7 " There is a very simple statement to be made about all these stories: they do not really come off intellectually as problems, and they do not come off artistically as fiction. They are too contrived, and too little aware of what goes on in the world. They try to be honest, but honesty is an art. The poor writer is dishonest without knowing it, and the fairly good one can be dishonest because he doesn’t know what to be honest about. He thinks a complicated murder scheme which baffled the lazy reader, who won’t be bothered itemizing the details, will also baffle the police, whose business is with details. "

― Raymond Chandler , The Simple Art of Murder

8 " The car slid along Los Angeles to Fifth, east to San Pedro, south again for block after block, quiet blocks and loud blocks, blocks where silent men sat on shaky front porches and blocks where noisy young toughs of both colors snarled and wise-cracked at one another in front of cheap restaurants and drug-stores and beer parlors full of slot machines. (Pickup on Noon Street) "

― Raymond Chandler , The Simple Art of Murder

9 " A hard-boiled redhead sang a hard-boiled song in a voice that could have been used to split firewood (Guns at Cyrano's) "

― Raymond Chandler , The Simple Art of Murder

10 " Writers who have the vision and the ability to produce real fiction do not produce unreal fiction. "

― Raymond Chandler , The Simple Art of Murder

11 " 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; it was right down their street. Hammett gave murder back to the kind of people that commit it for reasons, not just to provide a corpse; and with the means at hand, not hand-wrought dueling pistols, curare and tropical fish. He put these people down on paper as they were, and he made them talk and think in the language they customarily used for these purposes "

― Raymond Chandler , The Simple Art of Murder

12 " The music gushed from the loudspeaker in a swirl of shadowed melody. Since Vienna died, all waltzes are shadowed. (I'll be waiting) "

― Raymond Chandler , The Simple Art of Murder

13 " Her voice was a throaty screech, without melody, as false as her eyebrows and as sharp as her nails. (The King in Yellow) "

― Raymond Chandler , The Simple Art of Murder

14 " The thin man had a tight voice that expected to be lied to. (The King in Yellow) "

― Raymond Chandler , The Simple Art of Murder

15 " Carli’s was a small club at the end of a passage between a sporting-goods store and a circulating library. There was a grilled door and a man behind it who had given up trying to look as if it mattered who came in. (Smart-Aleck Kill) "

― Raymond Chandler , The Simple Art of Murder

16 " A dark woman with a sharp nose opened her mouth to yell and no sound came from her. There was the instant when nobody makes a sound, when it almost seems as if there will never again be any sound—after the sound of a gun. (Guns at Cyrano's) "

― Raymond Chandler , The Simple Art of Murder

17 " His clothes looked as if they had cost a great deal of money and had been slept in. (Guns at Cyrano's) "

― Raymond Chandler , The Simple Art of Murder

18 " It was twenty-five minutes past nine when he got to the corner of Seventh and Spring, where the Metropole was. It was an old hotel that had once been exclusive and was now steering a shaky course between a receivership and a bad name at Headquarters. It had too much oily dark wood paneling, too many chipped gilt mirrors. Too much smoke hung below its low beamed lobby ceiling and too many grifters bummed around in its worn leather rockers. The blonde who looked after the big horseshoe cigar counter wasn’t young any more and her eyes were cynical from standing off cheap dates. (Nevada Gas) "

― Raymond Chandler , The Simple Art of Murder

19 " Racket beer, sonny,” he said sadly. “Tasteless as a roadhouse blonde.” (Spanish Blood) "

― Raymond Chandler , The Simple Art of Murder

20 " You know who they are?” Tony said softly. “I could maybe give nine guesses. And twelve of them would be right.” (I'll be waiting) "

― Raymond Chandler , The Simple Art of Murder