Raymond Chandler Quotes - Page 7

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• 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 the tricks and has nothing to say.

  Raymond Chandler

  Art, Writing, Desire

  Raymond Chandler (2002). “Trouble Is My Business: A Novel”, p.5, Vintage Crime/Black Lizard

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• 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

  Struggle, Writing, Suspense

  Raymond Chandler, Dorothy Gardiner, Kathrine Sorley Walker (1977). “Raymond Chandler Speaking”, p.70, Univ of California Press

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

  Raymond Chandler

  Book, Literature, Ifs

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• The truth of art keeps science from becoming inhuman, and the truth of science keeps art from becoming ridiculous.

  Raymond Chandler

  Art, Becoming, Ridiculous

  Raymond Chandler, Tom Hiney, Frank MacShane (2002). “The Raymond Chandler Papers: Selected Letters and Nonfiction, 1909-1959”, p.229, Grove Press

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• Everything written with vitality expresses that vitality: there are no dull subjects, only dull minds.

  Raymond Chandler

  Mind, Vitality, Dull

  Raymond Chandler (2002). “The Simple Art of Murder”, p.16, Vintage Crime/Black Lizard

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• You can't have everything, even in California

  Raymond Chandler

  Inspiration, California

  Raymond Chandler, Tom Hiney, Frank MacShane (2002). “The Raymond Chandler Papers: Selected Letters and Nonfiction, 1909-1959”, p.250, Grove Press

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• The reading public is intellectually adolescent at best, and it is obvious that what is called ''significant literature'' will only be sold to this public by exactly the same methods as are used to sell it toothpaste, cathartics and automobiles.

  Raymond Chandler

  Reading, Society, Literature

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

  6 Copy quote

• She bent over me again. Blood began to move around in me, like a prospective tenant looking over a house.

  Raymond Chandler

  Moving, Blood, House

  Raymond Chandler (2011). “The Big Sleep & Farewell, My Lovely”, p.224, Modern Library

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• Could she *be* anymore out of my league?

  Raymond Chandler

  League, Dating, Romance

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• Would you convey my compliments to the purist who reads your proofs and tell him or her that I write in a sort of broken-down patois which is something like the way a Swiss waiter talks, and that when I split an infinitive, God damn it, I split it so it will stay split, and when I interrupt the velvety smoothness of my more or less literate syntax with a few sudden words of bar-room vernacular, that is done with the eyes wide open and the mind relaxed but attentive.

  Raymond Chandler

  God, Writing, Eye

  Letter to Edward Weeks, 18 Jan. 1947, in F. MacShane Life of Raymond Chandler (1976) ch. 7

  7 Copy quote

• Dames lie about anything - just for practice.

  Raymond Chandler

  Lying, Practice, Dames

  Raymond Chandler (2014). “The World of Raymond Chandler: In His Own Words”, p.210, Vintage

  7 Copy quote

• A check girl in peach-bloom Chinese pajamas came over to take my hat and disapprove of my clothes. She had eyes like strange sins.

  Raymond Chandler

  Girl, Eye, Clothes

  Raymond Chandler (2002). “The High Window: A Novel”, p.161, Vintage Crime/Black Lizard

  6 Copy quote

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

  Raymond Chandler

  Art, Littles, Significant

  Raymond Chandler (2002). “The Simple Art of Murder”, p.5, Vintage Crime/Black Lizard

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• All reading for pleasure is entertainment.

  Raymond Chandler

  Reading, Entertainment, Pleasure

  6 Copy quote

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

  Raymond Chandler

  Writing, Men, Paper

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• All art at some time and in some manner becomes mass entertainment, and if it does not it dies and is forgotten.

  Raymond Chandler

  Art, Doe, Entertainment

  Raymond Chandler, Tom Hiney, Frank MacShane (2002). “The Raymond Chandler Papers: Selected Letters and Nonfiction, 1909-1959”, p.71, Grove Press

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• Above all never forget that a marriage is in one way very much like a newspaper. It has to be made fresh every damn day of every damn year.

  Raymond Chandler

  Marriage, Years, Way

  Raymond Chandler, Tom Hiney, Frank MacShane (2002). “The Raymond Chandler Papers: Selected Letters and Nonfiction, 1909-1959”, p.217, Grove Press

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• I'm all done with hating you. It's all washed out of me. I hate people hard, but I don't hate them very long.

  Raymond Chandler

  Hate, Long, People

  Raymond Chandler, Geoffrey Household, Robert Bloch (1977). “Great stories of mystery and suspense”

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• 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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• 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

  Jobs, Writing, Perfect

  Raymond Chandler (2014). “The World of Raymond Chandler: In His Own Words”, p.244, Vintage

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• Great critics, of whom there are piteously few, build a home for the truth.

  Raymond Chandler

  Home, Critics

  Raymond Chandler, Dorothy Gardiner, Kathrine Sorley Walker (1977). “Raymond Chandler Speaking”, p.78, Univ of California Press

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• I like bars just after they open in the evening. When the air inside is still cool and clean and everything is shiny. The first quiet drink of the evening in a quiet bar -- that's wonderful.

  Raymond Chandler

  Air, Bars, Firsts

  Raymond Chandler (2002). “The Long Goodbye: A Novel”, p.24, Vintage Crime/Black Lizard

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• May I wish for you the knowledge...that marriages do not take place, they are made by hand; that there is always an element of discipline involved; that however perfect the honeymoon, the time will come, however brief it is, when you wish she would fall downstairs and break a leg. This goes for her too. But the mood will pass, if you give it time.

  Raymond Chandler

  Fall, Break A Leg, Hands

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• It is not a fragrant world.

  Raymond Chandler

  Anger, Society, World

  Raymond Chandler (2002). “The Simple Art of Murder”, p.23, Vintage Crime/Black Lizard

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• Not only is the motion picture an art, but it is the one entirely new art that has been evolved on this planet for hundreds of years. It is the only art at which we of this generation have any possible chance to greatly excel.

  Raymond Chandler

  Art, Years, This Generation

  Raymond Chandler, Tom Hiney, Frank MacShane (2002). “The Raymond Chandler Papers: Selected Letters and Nonfiction, 1909-1959”, p.72, Grove Press

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