Quotes by Raymond Chandler

At least half the mystery novels published violate the law that the solution once revealed must seem to be inevitable.

Alcohol is like love. The first kiss is magic, the second is intimate, the third is routine. After that you take the girls clothes off.

An age which is incapable of poetry is incapable of any kind of literature except the cleverness of a decadence.

Chess is as elaborate a waste of human intelligence as you can find outside an advertising agency.

He looked about as inconspicuous as a tarantula on a slice of angel food.

She gave me a smile I could feel in my hip pocket.

It is not a fragrant world.

“There are two kinds of truth; The truth that lights the way and the truth that warms the heart. The first of these is science and the second is art.”

“Until you guys own your own souls you dont own mine. Until you guys can be trusted every time and always, in all times and conditions, to seek the truth out and find it and let the chips fall where they may—until that time comes, I have the right to listen to my conscience, and protect my client the best way I can. Until Im sure you wont do him more harm than youll do the truth good. Or until Im hauled before somebody that can make me talk.”

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

“It was a nice walk, if you liked grunting.”