Quote

Police business is a hell of a problem. It's a good deal like politics. It asks for the highest type of men, and there's nothing in it to attract the highest type of men.

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
Like
Hell
Asks
Politics
Attract
Business
Police
Problem
Highest
Nothing
Type
Good
Deal
Men
Deals

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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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Mostly I just kill time, he said, and it dies hard.
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One would think a writer would be happy here — if a writer is ever happy anywhere.
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She was kind of girl who'd eat all your cashews and leave you with nothing but peanuts and filberts.
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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.
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The moment a man sets his thoughts down on paper, however secretly, he is in a sense writing for publication.
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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.
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Everything a writer learns about the art or craft of fiction takes just a little away from his need or desire to write at all. In the end he knows all the tricks and has nothing to say.
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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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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. It is a projection of personality and you have to have a personality before you can project it. It is the product of emotion and perception.
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Show me a man or woman who cannot stand mysteries and I will show you a fool, a clever fool - perhaps - but a fool just the same.
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Throw up into your typewriter every morning. Clean up every noon.
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When the plot flags, bring in a man with a gun.
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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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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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The girl gave him a look which ought to have stuck at least four inches out of his back.
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The wet air was as cold as the ashes of love.
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There is no trap so deadly as the trap you set for yourself.
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The best way to find out if you have any friends is to go broke. The ones that hang on longest are your friends. I don't mean the ones that hang on forever. There aren't any of those.
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