James M. Cain Quotes

• Love, when you get fear in it, it's not love any more. It's hate.

  James M. Cain

  Fear, Hate

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• If your writing doesn`t keep you up at night, it won`t keep anyone else up either".

  James M. Cain

  Writing, Night, Ifs

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• I make no conscious effort to be tough, or hard-boiled, or grim, or any of the things I am usually called. I merely try to write as the character would write, and I never forget that the average man, from the fields, the streets, the bars, the offices and even the gutters of his country, has acquired a vividness of speech that goes beyond anything I could invent, and that if I stick to this heritage, this logos of the American countryside, I shall attain a maximum of effectiveness with very little effort.

  James M. Cain

  Country, Writing, Character

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• Time is the only critic.

  James M. Cain

  Criticism, Critics

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• I loved her like a rabbit loves a rattlesnake

  James M. Cain

  Rabbits, Rattlesnakes

  James M. Cain (2011). “Double Indemnity”, p.69, Vintage Crime/Black Lizard

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• If you have to do it, you can do it.

  James M. Cain

  Can Do, Ifs, You Can Do It

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• The hand that holds the money cracks the whip.

  James M. Cain

  Hands, Cracks, Whips

  James M. Cain (2010). “Mildred Pierce”, p.184, Vintage Crime/Black Lizard

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• I write of the wish that comes true--for some reason, a terrifying thought.

  James M. Cain

  Writing, Wish, Reason

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• A lot of novelists start late-Conrad, Pirandello, even Mark Twain. When you're young, chess is all right, and music and poetry. But novel-writing is something else. It has to be learned, but it can't be taught. This bunkum and stinkum of college creative writing courses! The academics don't know that the only thing you can do for someone who wants to write is to buy him a typewriter.

  James M. Cain

  Writing, College, Typewriters

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• You usually can tell when a writer is going down hill by the size of his liquor bill.

  James M. Cain

  Bills, Size, Hills

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• A guitar has moonlight in it.

  James M. Cain

  Guitar, Moonlight

  James M. Cain (2011). “Three by Cain: Serenade, Love's Lovely Counterfeit, The Butterfly”, p.119, Vintage Crime/Black Lizard

  12 Copy quote

• That's all it takes, one drop of fear to curdle love into hate.

  James M. Cain

  Fear, Hate

  James M. Cain (2011). “Double Indemnity”, p.53, Vintage Crime/Black Lizard

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• Writing a novel is like working on foreign policy. There are problems to be solved. It's not all inspirational.

  James M. Cain

  Writing, Problem, Foreign Policy

  "Literature's DNA" by Jonathan Raban, www.theguardian.com. January 13, 2007.

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• She was a little given to rehearsing things in her mind, and having imaginary triumphs over people who had upset her in one way and another.

  James M. Cain

  People, Upset, Mind

  James M. Cain (2010). “Mildred Pierce”, p.23, Vintage Crime/Black Lizard

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• You have to wait for your mind to catch up with whatever it is it’s working on; then you can write a novel.

  James M. Cain

  Writing, Waiting, Mind

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• Yes, I have actually mined coal, and distilled liquor, as well as seen a girl in a pink dress, and seen her take it off. I am 54 years old, weigh 220 pounds, and look like the chief dispatcher of a long-distance driving concern. I am a registered Democrat. I drink.

  James M. Cain

  Girl, Distance, Years

  James M. Cain (1982). “The Butterfly”, Random House Digital, Inc.

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• They threw me off the haytruck about noon.

  James M. Cain

  Noon

  The Postman Always Rings Twice ch. 1 (1934)

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• When it’s too good, you do it over again. Too good is too easy. If it’s too easy you have to worry. If you’re not lying awake at night worrying about it, the reader isn’t going to, either. I always know that when I get a good night’s sleep, the next day I’m not going to get any work done. Writing a novel is like working on foreign policy. There are problems to be solved. It’s not all inspirational.

  James M. Cain

  Good Night, Lying, Writing

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• A gun is like breath to a drowning man--it has to be drawn in haste.

  James M. Cain

  Gun, Men, Haste

  8 Copy quote

• Stealing a man's wife, that's nothing, but stealing his car, that's larceny.

  James M. Cain

  Men, Wife, Car

  James M. Cain (2010). “The Postman Always Rings Twice”, p.20, Hachette UK

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• If you can't write like New York, you have no business living in New York and making New York the locale of your stories.

  James M. Cain

  New York, Writing, Stories

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• New York is not even a city, it's a congerie of rotten villages.

  James M. Cain

  New York, Cities, Rotten

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• I make no conscious effort to be tough, or hard-boiled, or grim, or any of the things I am usually called.

  James M. Cain

  Effort, Tough, Conscious

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• I had killed a man, for money and a woman. I didn't have the money and I didn't have the woman.

  James M. Cain

  Men

  James M. Cain (2011). “Double Indemnity”, p.79, Vintage Crime/Black Lizard

  7 Copy quote

• O.K." "Gee I'm glad." "Me too. I'm so sick of hot dogs and beer and apple pie with cheese on the side I could heave it all in the river." "You'll love it, Frank. We'll get a place up in the mountains, where it's cool, and then, after I get my act ready, we can go all over the world with it. Go as we please, do as we please, and have plenty of money to spend. Have you got a little bit of gypsy in you?" "Gypsy? I had rings in my ears when I was born.

  James M. Cain

  Dog, Beer, Rivers

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