Raymond Chandler

Let us never accept

Let us never accept the point of view that mysteries are written by hacks. The poorest of us shed our blood over every chapter. The best of us start from scratch with every new book. Raymond Chandler

I guess God made

I guess God made Boston on a wet Sunday. Raymond Chandler

It is not funny

It is not funny that a man should be killed, but it is sometimes funny that he should be killed for so little, and that his death should be the coin of what we call civilization. Raymond Chandler

It is a mass language only in the same sense that its baseball slang is born of baseball players. That is, it is a language which is being molded by writers to do delicate things and yet be within the grasp of superficially educated people. It is not a natural growth, much as its proletarian … Read more

What greater prestige can

What greater prestige can a man like me (not too gifted, but very understanding) have than to have taken a cheap, shoddy and utterly lost kind of writing, and have made of it something that intellectuals claw each other about? Raymond Chandler

A real gimlet is

A real gimlet is half gin and half Rose’s lime juice and nothing else. Raymond Chandler

Common sense is the

Common sense is the guy who tells you that you ought to have had your brakes relined last week before you smashed a front end this week. Common sense is the Monday morning quarterback who could have won the ball game if he had been on the team. But he never is. He’s high up … Read more

When a book, any

When a book, any sort of book, reaches a certain intensity of artistic performance it becomes literature. Raymond Chandler

You can’t tell a

You can’t tell a doper well under control from a vegetarian book-keeper. Raymond Chandler

Hollywood is a showman’s

Hollywood is a showman’s paradise. But showmen make nothing; they exploit what someone else has made. The publisher and the play producer are showmen too; but they exploit what is already made. The showmen of Hollywood control the making – and thereby degrade it. For the basic art of motion pictures is the screenplay; it … Read more