Raymond Chandler Quotes About Books

Quotes about: Books

• When a book, any sort of book, reaches a certain intensity of artistic performance, it becomes literature. That intensity may be a matter of style, situation, character, emotional tone, or idea, or half a dozen other things. It may also be a perfection of control over the movement of a story similar to the control a great pitcher has over the ball.

  Raymond Chandler

  Book, Character, Emotional

  Raymond Chandler, Tom Hiney, Frank MacShane (2002). “The Raymond Chandler Papers: Selected Letters and Nonfiction, 1909-1959”, p.65, Grove Press

• The flood of print has turned reading into a process of gulping rather than savoring.

  Raymond Chandler

  Book, Reading, Design

• That's one thing I like about Hollywood. The writer is there revealed in his ultimate corruption. He asks no praise, because his praise comes to him in the form of a salary check. In Hollywood the average writer is not young, not honest, not brave, and a bit overdressed. But he is darn good company, which book writers as a rule are not. He is better than what he writes. Most book writers are not as good.

  Raymond Chandler

  Book, Writing, Average

• They write them long because they can't write them short.

  Raymond Chandler

  Book, Writing, Long

• You can't tell a doper well under control from a vegetarian book-keeper.

  Raymond Chandler

  Book, Drug, Vegetarian

  Raymond Chandler (2002). “The Long Goodbye: A Novel”, p.119, Vintage Crime/Black Lizard

• If you liked a book, don't meet the author

  Raymond Chandler

  Book, Literature, Ifs

• As it is she will probably turn out to be one of these acid-faced virgins that sit behind little desks in public libraries and stamp dates in books.

  Raymond Chandler

  Book, Library, Littles

  Raymond Chandler (2002). “The High Window: A Novel”, p.302, Vintage Crime/Black Lizard

• A good title is the title of a successful book.

  Raymond Chandler

  Book, Inspiration, Successful

  Raymond Chandler, Tom Hiney, Frank MacShane (2002). “The Raymond Chandler Papers: Selected Letters and Nonfiction, 1909-1959”, p.75, Grove Press

• 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

  Funny, Book, Hollywood

  Atlantic Monthly, 12 Dec. 1945

• The publishers and others should quit worrying about losing customers to TV. The guy who can sit through a trio of deodorant commercials to look at Flashgun Casey or swallow a flock of beer and loan-shark spiels in order to watch a couple of fourth-rate club fighters rub noses on the ropes is not losing any time from book reading.

  Raymond Chandler

  Couple, Book, Reading

  Raymond Chandler, Tom Hiney, Frank MacShane (2002). “The Raymond Chandler Papers: Selected Letters and Nonfiction, 1909-1959”, p.69, Grove Press

• When a book, any sort of book, reaches a certain intensity of artistic performance it becomes literature.

  Raymond Chandler

  Book, Literature, Artistic

  Raymond Chandler, Dorothy Gardiner, Kathrine Sorley Walker (1977). “Raymond Chandler Speaking”, p.51, Univ of California Press

• Let us never accept the point of view that mysteries are written by hacks. The poorest of us shed our blood over every chapter. The best of us start from scratch with every new book.

  Raymond Chandler

  Book, Views, Blood

  Raymond Chandler, Dorothy Gardiner, Kathrine Sorley Walker (1977). “Raymond Chandler Speaking”, p.62, Univ of California Press

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

  Raymond Chandler

  Book, Reading, Writing

• The average detective story is probably no worse than the average novel, but you never see the average novel. It doesn't get published. The average -- or only slightly above average -- detective story does.... Whereas the good novel is not at all the same kind of book as the bad novel. It is about entirely different things. But the good detective story and the bad detective story are about exactly the same things, and they are about them in very much the same way.

  Raymond Chandler

  Book, Average, Doe

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