Dashiell Hammett Quotes

He was the perfect soldier: he went where you sent him, and stayed where you put him, and had no ide...

I found I was repeating myself. It is the beginning of the end when you discover you have style.

I distrust a man that says when. If he's got to be careful not to drink to much it's because he's no...

How about a drop of something to cut the phlegm?Why don't you stay sober today?We didn't come to New...

You know Quinn?" Macaulay asked me."Ten minutes ago I was putting him to bed."Macaulay grinned. "I h...

Don't be so damned patronizing. Your performance so far has been a little less than dazzling.""I did...

She stared at him dully and said: “I don’t like crooks, and even if I did, I wouldn’t like crooks th...

My side felt a lot better when Nora called me at noon the next day. "My nice policeman wants to see ...

...I guess I can put two and two together.""Sometimes the answer's four," I said, "and sometimes it'...

The people who lie the most are nearly always the clumsiest at it, and they're easier to fool with l...

When a man's partner is killed he's supposed to do something about it. It doesn't make any differenc...

The cheaper the crook, the gaudier the patter.

Yes,' Spade growled. 'And when you're slapped you'll take it and like it.' He released Cairo's wrist...

He looked rather pleasantly, like a blonde satan.

Brigid O'Shaughnessy: “I haven't lived a good life. I've been bad, worse than you could know.” Sam S...

Joel Cairo: You always have a very smooth explanation ready.Sam Spade: What do you want me to do, le...

I've been as bad an influence on American literature as anyone I can think of.

To get what he wanted, a man had to give other people what they wanted.

I just tell you what happens. I don't explain it.

If you have a story that seems worth telling, and you think you can tell it worthily, then the thing...