DASHIELL HAMMETT

It's sometimes better to pretend I don't hear the sound of somebody in the nearby woods with a shotgun.

I haven't any sort of plans for the future but I reckon things will work out in some manner.

Looks like she's been slapping the kid again.

Strictly speaking, there are no real substitutes for sexual satisfaction.

The roof might fall in; anything could happen.

You got to look on the bright side, even if there ain't one.

Feed the lettuce to the bunny and eat the bunny.

I've been as bad an influence on American literature as anyone I can think of.

It's awfully easy to be in love in jail.

With what dope I got I think it fills me in pretty well.

Our lawyers had their chat with the Supreme Court Justice, and promised to repast the chat to other members of the Supreme Court to find out whether they wanted to hear us out.

Another man whose social life has ruined him.

People always say things like, Oh, well, he was suffering so much that he was better off dying. But that's not true. You're always better off living.

I don't know much about him; never heard him say more than nope or yup.

She seems to be having a pretty good time despite her worrying. That's Lily.

I have not killed anyone. They will not let me.

I deserve all the love you can spare me. And I want a lot more than I deserve.

Thanks for the information about what we call business.

I like women. I really like women.

I distrust a man that says when. If he's got to be careful not to drink to much it's because he's not to be trusted when he does.

He felt like somebody had taken the lid off life and let him see the works.

What I try to do is write a story about a detective rather than a detective story. Keeping the reader fooled until the last, possible moment is a good trick and I usually try to play it, but I can't attach more than secondary importance to it. The puzzle isn't so interesting to me as the behavior of the detective attacking it.

I found I was repeating myself. It is the beginning of the end when you discover you have style.

Nora said: 'I love you, Nicky, because you smell nice and know such fascinating people.

We didn't exactly believe your story.' Then --?' 'We believed your two hundred dollars.' 'You mean --' She seemed not to know what he meant. 'I mean that you paid us more than if you'd been telling the truth,' he explained blandly, 'and enough more to make it all right.