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The test of a writer is whether you want to read him again years after he should by the rules be dated.

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
Years
Dated
Test
Tests
Rules
Writer
Whether
Read
Writing

More quotes by Raymond Chandler

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The tragedy of life, Howard, is not that the beautiful die young, but that they grow old and mean. It will not happen to me.
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I do a great deal of research, especially in the apartments of tall blondes.
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An artist cannot deny art, nor would he want to. A lover cannot deny love.
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A good story cannot be devised it has to be distilled.
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When I split an infinitive, God damn it, I split it so it stays split.
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There are people who can write their memoirs with a reasonable amount of honesty, and there are people who simply cannot take themselves seriously enough. I think I might be the first to admit that the sort of reticence which prevents a man from exploiting his own personality is really an inverted sort of egotism.
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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.
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Tall, aren't you? I didn't mean to be.
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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.
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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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Down these mean streets a man must go who is neither tarnished nor afraid
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Such is the brutalization of commercial ethics in this country that no one can feel anything more delicate than the velvet touch of a soft buck.
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I like smooth shiny girls, hardboiled and loaded with sin.
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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.
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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.
Raymond Chandler
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She bent over me again. Blood began to move around in me, like a prospective tenant looking over a house.
Raymond Chandler
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I needed a drink, I needed a lot of life insurance, I needed a vacation, I needed a home in the country. What I had was a coat, a hat and a gun. I put them on and went out of the room.
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The truth of art keeps science from becoming inhuman, and the truth of science keeps art from becoming ridiculous.
Raymond Chandler
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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.
Raymond Chandler
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When a book, any sort of book, reaches a certain intensity of artistic performance, it becomes literature. That intensity may be a matter of style, situation, character, emotional tone, or idea, or half a dozen other things. It may also be a perfection of control over the movement of a story similar to the control a great pitcher has over the ball.
Raymond Chandler