Quote

If you have a story that seems worth telling, and you think you can tell it worthily, then the thing for you to do is to tell it, regardless of whether it has to do with sex, sailors or mounted policemen.

Dashiell Hammett

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Dashiell Hammett
Age: 66 †
Born: 1894
Born: June 25
Died: 1961
Died: January 10
Author
Journalist
Literary Critic
Novelist
Prosaist
Screenwriter
Writer
Baltimore
Maryland
Samuel Dashiell Hammett
Thinking
Story
Mounted
Whether
Sailors
Tell
Policemen
Stories
Sailor
Seems
Regardless
Writing
Telling
Thing
Sex
Think
Worth
Worthily

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I like women. I really like women.
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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.
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The truth is you don't like the theater except the times when you're in a room by yourself putting the play on paper.
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I don t mind a reasonable amount of trouble.
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I first heard Personville called Poisonville by a red-haired mucker named Hickey Dewey in the Big Ship in Butte. He also called his shirt a shoit.
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You got to look on the bright side, even if there ain't one.
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A lot of fancier yarns come from people trying to tell the truth. It’s not easy once you’re out of the habit.
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He looked rather pleasantly, like a blonde satan.
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Feed the lettuce to the bunny and eat the bunny.
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Three times I have been mistaken for a prohibition agent, but never had any trouble clearing myself.
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I couldn't be fonder of you if you were my own son. But, well, if you lose a son, its possible to get another. There's only one Maltese Falcon.
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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.
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I've been as bad an influence on American literature as anyone I can think of.
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My way of learning is to heave a wild and unpredictable monkey-wrench into the machinery.
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Nick: Don't you think maybe a drink would help you to sleep? Nora: No, thanks. Nick: Maybe it would if I took one.
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The cheaper the crook, the gaudier the patter.
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She grinned at me. 'You got types?' 'Only you darling - lanky brunettes with wicked jaws.
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