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Most critical writing is drivel and half of it is dishonest. It is a short cut to oblivion, anyway. Thinking in terms of ideas destroys the power to think in terms of emotions and sensations.

Raymond Chandler

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Raymond Chandler
Age: 70 †
Born: 1888
Born: July 23
Died: 1959
Died: March 26
Novelist
Poet
Screenwriter
Writer
Chicago
Illinois
Raymond Thornton Chandler
Cutting
Sensations
Thinking
Emotion
Anyway
Term
Emotions
Half
Critics
Power
Critical
Drivel
Criticism
Dishonest
Ideas
Terms
Oblivion
Writing
Short
Destroys
Think

More quotes by Raymond Chandler

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The boys with their feet on the desks know that the easiest murder case in the world to break is the one somebody tried to get very cute with the one that really bothers them is the murder somebody only thought of two minutes before he pulled it off.
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She was the music heard faintly on the edge of sound.
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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.
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From 30 feet away she looked like a lot of class. From 10 feet away she looked like something made up to be seen from 30 feet away.
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As it is she will probably turn out to be one of these acid-faced virgins that sit behind little desks in public libraries and stamp dates in books.
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Two very simple rules: A. You don't have to write. B. You can't do anything else The rest comes of itself.
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It seemed like a nice neighborhood to have bad habits in.
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He snorted and hit me in the solar plexus. I bent over and took hold of the room with both hands and spun it. When I had it nicely spinning I gave it a full swing and hit myself on the back of the head with the floor.
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James Cain - faugh! Everything he touches smells like a billygoat. He is every kind of writer I detest, a faux naix, a Proust in greasy overalls, a dirty little boy with a piece of chalk and a board fence and nobody looking. Such people are the offal of literature, not because they write about dirty things, but because they do it in a dirty way.
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At least half the mystery novels published violate the law that the solution, once revealed, must seem to be inevitable.
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They write them long because they can't write them short.
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I don't mind your showing me your legs. They're very swell legs and it's a pleasure to make their acquaintance. I don't mind if you don't like my manners. They're pretty bad. I grieve over them during the long winter evenings. But don't waste your time trying to cross-examine me.
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Most people go through life using up half their energy trying to protect a dignity they never had
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She bent over me again. Blood began to move around in me, like a prospective tenant looking over a house.
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The more you reason the less you create.
Raymond Chandler
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A really good detective never gets married.
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They don't want you until you have made a name, and by the time you have made a name, you have developed some kind of talent they can't use. All they will do is spoil it, if you let them.
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The most durable thing in writing is style, and style is the single most valuable investment a writer can make with his time.
Raymond Chandler
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Americans will eat anything if it is toasted and held together with a couple of toothpicks and has lettuce sticking out of the sides, preferably a little wilted.
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You can't have everything, even in California
Raymond Chandler