Quote

It is just possible that the tensions in a novel of murder are the simplest and yet most complete pattern of the tensions on which we live in this generation.

Raymond Chandler

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Raymond Chandler
Age: 70 †
Born: 1888
Born: July 23
Died: 1959
Died: March 26
Novelist
Poet
Screenwriter
Writer
Chicago
Illinois
Raymond Thornton Chandler
Generation
Generations
Tensions
Novel
Simplest
Possible
Pattern
Live
Tension
Patterns
Murder
Complete

More quotes by Raymond Chandler

Image
I knew one thing: as soon as anyone said you didn't need a gun, you'd better take one along that worked.
Raymond Chandler
Image
Some are able and humane men and some are low-grade individuals with the morals of a goat, the artistic integrity of a slot machine, and the manners of a floorwalker with delusions of grandeur.
Raymond Chandler
Image
One would think a writer would be happy here — if a writer is ever happy anywhere.
Raymond Chandler
Image
It seemed like a nice neighborhood to have bad habits in.
Raymond Chandler
Image
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.
Raymond Chandler
Image
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.
Raymond Chandler
Image
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.
Raymond Chandler
Image
I'm an occasional drinker, the kind of guy who goes out for a beer and wakes up in Singapore with a full beard.
Raymond Chandler
Image
If you liked a book, don't meet the author
Raymond Chandler
Image
The growth of populations has in no way increased the amount [of art], it has merely increased the adeptness with which substitutes can be produced and packaged.
Raymond Chandler
Image
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.
Raymond Chandler
Image
I'm all done with hating you. It's all washed out of me. I hate people hard, but I don't hate them very long.
Raymond Chandler
Image
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
Image
The more you reason the less you create.
Raymond Chandler
Image
Down these mean streets a man must go who is neither tarnished nor afraid
Raymond Chandler
Image
A really good detective never gets married.
Raymond Chandler
Image
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
Image
She was the music heard faintly on the edge of sound.
Raymond Chandler
Image
There is no bad whiskey. There are only some whiskeys that aren't as good as others.
Raymond Chandler
Image
I always find what I want. But when I find it, I don't want it any more.
Raymond Chandler