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When the plot flags, bring in a man with a gun.

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
Men
Flags
Plot
Gun
Bring

More quotes by 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.
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A good title is the title of a successful book.
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It is not funny that a man should be killed, but it is sometimes funny that he should be killed for so little, and that his death should be the coin of what we call civilization.
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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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You can have a hangover from other things than alcohol. I had one from women.
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One would think a writer would be happy here — if a writer is ever happy anywhere.
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A real gimlet is half gin and half Rose's lime juice and nothing else.
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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 coffee shop smell was strong enough to build a garage on.
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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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Tall, aren't you? she said. I didn't mean to be. Her eyes rounded. She was puzzled. She was thinking. I could see, even on that short acquaintance, that thinking was always going to be a bother to her.
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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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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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Technique alone is never enough. You have to have passion. Technique alone is just an embroidered potholder.
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The faster I write the better my output. If I'm going slow, I'm in trouble. It means I'm pushing the words instead of being pulled by them.
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The truth of art keeps science from becoming inhuman, and the truth of science keeps art from becoming ridiculous.
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Mostly I just kill time, he said, and it dies hard.
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The actual writing is what you live for. The rest is something you have to get through in order to arrive at the point.
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Organized crime is the dirty side of the sharp dollar.
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At least half the mystery novels published violate the law that the solution, once revealed, must seem to be inevitable.
Raymond Chandler