It is not a fragrant world. — Raymond Chandler

As honest as you can expect a man to be in a world where its going out of style. — Raymond Chandler

A dead man is the best fall guy in the world. He never talks back. — Raymond Chandler

Such a lot of guns around town and so few brains. You’re the second guy I’ve met within hours who seems to think a gat in the hand means a world by the tail. — Raymond Chandler

That’s the trouble with cops. You’re all set to hate their guts and then you meet one that goes human on you. — Raymond Chandler

Woe, Woe, woe… in a little while we shall all be dead. therefore let us behave as though we were dead already. — Raymond Chandler

Neither of the two people in the room paid any attention to the way I came in, although only one of them was dead. — Raymond Chandler

Dead men are heavier than broken hearts. — Raymond Chandler

I belonged in Idle Valley like a pearl onion on a banana split. — Raymond Chandler

Mostly I just kill time,’ he said, ‘and it dies hard. — Raymond Chandler

She looked playful and eager, but not quite sure of herself, like a new kitten in a house where they don’t care much about kittens. — Raymond Chandler

He looked about as inconspicuous as a tarantula on a slice of angel food cake. — Raymond Chandler

I sat down on the edge of a deep soft chair and looked at Mrs Regan. She was worth a stare. She was trouble. — Raymond Chandler

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

I looked down at the chessboard. The move with the knight was wrong. I put it back where I had moved it from. Knights had no meaning in this game. It wasn’t a game for knights. — Raymond Chandler

One would think a writer would be happy here––if a writer is every happy anywhere. — Raymond Chandler

A writer who is afraid to overreach himself is as useless as a general who is afraid to be wrong. — Raymond Chandler

The English may not always be the best writers in the world, but they are incomparably the best dull writers. — Raymond Chandler

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 of the tricks and has nothing to say. — Raymond Chandler

That’s the difference between crime and business. For business you gotta have capital. Sometimes I think it’s the only difference. — Raymond Chandler

Love interest nearly always weakens a mystery because it introduces a type of suspense that is antagonistic to the detective’s struggle to solve a problem. — Raymond Chandler

When I split an infinitive, God damn it, I split it so it will stay split. — Raymond Chandler

They write them long because they can’t write them short. — Raymond Chandler

The perfect detective story cannot be written. The type of mind which can evolve the perfect problem is not the type of mind that can produce the artistic job of writing. — Raymond Chandler

Without magic, there is no art. Without art, there is no idealism. Without idealism, there is no integrity. Without integrity, there is nothing but production. — Raymond Chandler

A city with all the personality of a paper cup. (On Los Angeles) — Raymond Chandler

I like smooth shiny girls, hardboiled and loaded with sin. — Raymond Chandler

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. — Raymond Chandler

Alcohol is like love. The first kiss is magic, the second is intimate, the third is routine. After that you take the girl’s clothes off. — Raymond Chandler

Most critical writing is drivel and half of it is dishonest. It is a short cut to oblivion, anyway. Thinking in terms of ideas destroys the power to think in terms of emotions and sensations. — Raymond Chandler

The girl gave him a look which ought to have stuck at least four inches out of his back. — Raymond Chandler

I had a funny feeling as I saw the house disappear, as though I had written a poem and it was very good and I had lost it and would never remember it again. — Raymond Chandler

In writing a novel, when in doubt, have two guys come through the door with guns. — Raymond Chandler

Scarcely anything in literature is worth a damn except what is written between the lines. — Raymond Chandler

The most durable thing in writing is style, and style is the single most valuable investment a writer can make with his time. — Raymond Chandler

If my books had been any worse, I should not have been invited to Hollywood, and if they had been any better, I should not have come. — Raymond Chandler

The streets were dark with something more than night. — Raymond Chandler

There are no vital and significant forms of art; there is only art, and precious little of that. — Raymond Chandler

The actual writing is what you live for. The rest is something you have to get through in order to arrive at the point. — Raymond Chandler

The moment a man sets his thoughts down on paper, however secretly, he is in a sense writing for publication. — Raymond Chandler

I guess God made Boston on a wet Sunday. — Raymond Chandler

A good story cannot be devised; it has to be distilled. — Raymond Chandler

Throw up into your typewriter every morning. Clean up every noon. — Raymond Chandler

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

There is no bad whiskey. There are only some whiskeys that aren’t as good as others. — Raymond Chandler

The challenge of screenwriting is to say much in little and then take half of that little out and still preserve an effect of leisure and natural movement. — Raymond Chandler

Television is just one more facet of that considerable segment of our society that never had any standard but the soft buck. — Raymond Chandler