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I always find what I want. But when I find it, I don't want it any more.

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
Find
Always

More quotes by Raymond Chandler

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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.
Raymond Chandler
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Could she *be* anymore out of my league?
Raymond Chandler
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In everything that can be called art there is a quality of redemption.
Raymond Chandler
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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
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The private detective of fiction is a fantastic creation who acts and speaks like a real man. He can be completely realistic in every sense but one, that one sense being that in life as we know it such a man would not be a private detective.
Raymond Chandler
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The keynote of American civilization is a sort of warm-hearted vulgarity. The Americans have none of the irony of the English, none of their cool poise, none of their manner. But they do have friendliness. Where an Englishman would give you his card, an American would very likely give you his shirt.
Raymond Chandler
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A nice state of affairs when a man has to indulge his vices by proxy.
Raymond Chandler
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You can always tell a detective on TV. He never takes his hat off.
Raymond Chandler
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Real cities have something else, some individual bony structure under the muck. Los Angeles has Hollywood -- and hates it. It ought to consider itself damn lucky. Without Hollywood it would be a mail order city. Everything in the catalogue you could get better somewhere else.
Raymond Chandler
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If you liked a book, don't meet the author
Raymond Chandler
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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.
Raymond Chandler
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The coffee shop smell was strong enough to build a garage on.
Raymond Chandler
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She was the music heard faintly on the edge of sound.
Raymond Chandler
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Under the thinning fog the surf curled and creamed, almost without sound, like a thought trying to form inself on the edge of consciousness.
Raymond Chandler
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There are two kinds of truth The truth that lights the way and the truth that warms the heart. The fist of these is science and the second is art.
Raymond Chandler
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Good critical writing is measured by the perception and evaluation of the subject bad critical writing by the necessity of maintaining the professional standing of the critic.
Raymond Chandler
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The more you reason the less you create.
Raymond Chandler
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I have made three rules of writing for myself that are absolutes: Never take advice. Never show or discuss work in progress. Never answer a critic.
Raymond Chandler
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I hung up. It was a good start, but it didn’t go far enough. I ought to have locked the door and hidden under the desk.
Raymond Chandler
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The moment a man sets his thoughts down on paper, however secretly, he is in a sense writing for publication.
Raymond Chandler