Dashiell Hammett Quotes

Quotes about:

• The problem with putting two and two together is that sometimes you get four, and sometimes you get twenty-two.

  Dashiell Hammett

  Two, Together, Twenties

  61 Copy quote

• You got to look on the bright side, even if there ain't one.

  Dashiell Hammett

  Sides, Looks, Bright Side

  25 Copy quote

• You don't pay a prostitute for sex, you pay her to leave afterwards.

  Dashiell Hammett

  Sex, Pay

  33 Copy quote

• The outcome of successful planning always looks like luck to saps.

  Dashiell Hammett

  Successful, Luck, Looks

  Dashiell Hammett (2007). “The Dain Curse: The Glass Key ; and Selected Stories”, Everyman's Library

  16 Copy quote

• The people who lie the most are nearly always the clumsiest at it, and they're easier to fool with lies than most people, too. You'd think they'd be on the look-out for lies, but they seem to be the very ones that will believe almost anything at all.

  Dashiell Hammett

  Lying, Believe, Thinking

  Dashiell Hammett (1965). “Novels”, Alfred A. Knopf

  24 Copy quote

• What I try to do is write a story about a detective rather than a detective story. Keeping the reader fooled until the last, possible moment is a good trick and I usually try to play it, but I can't attach more than secondary importance to it. The puzzle isn't so interesting to me as the behavior of the detective attacking it.

  Dashiell Hammett

  Writing, Play, Interesting

  35 Copy quote

• The cheaper the crook, the gaudier the patter.

  Dashiell Hammett

  Crooks, Noir, Sam Spade

  Dashiell Hammett (2007). “Vintage Hammett”, p.151, Vintage

  26 Copy quote

• I once knew a man who stole a Ferris Wheel.

  Dashiell Hammett

  Men, Wheels, Ferris Wheels

  28 Copy quote

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

  Dashiell Hammett

  Thinking, Literature, Influence

  "Mystery writer" by Margaret Atwood, www.theguardian.com. February 15, 2002.

  67 Copy quote

• My way of learning is to heave a wild and unpredictable monkey-wrench into the machinery.

  Dashiell Hammett

  Monkeys, Way, Machinery

  Dashiell Hammett (2010). “The Maltese Falcon”, p.95, Vintage Crime/Black Lizard

  31 Copy quote

• Who shot him? I asked. The grey man scratched the back of his neck and said: Somebody with a gun.

  Dashiell Hammett

  Gun, Men, Necks

  Dashiell Hammett (2007). “Vintage Hammett”, p.75, Vintage

  5 Copy quote

• I deserve all the love you can spare me. And I want a lot more than I deserve.

  Dashiell Hammett

  Love You, Want, Spares

  Dashiell Hammett (2002). “Selected Letters of Dashiell Hammett, 1921-1960”, Counterpoint Press

  19 Copy quote

• I don t mind a reasonable amount of trouble.

  Dashiell Hammett

  Mind, Trouble, Film Noir

  Dashiell Hammett (2010). “The Maltese Falcon”, p.61, Vintage Crime/Black Lizard

  90 Copy quote

• I haven't laughed so much over anything since the hogs ate my kid brother.

  Dashiell Hammett

  Brother, Kids, Hog

  Dashiell Hammett (1965). “The novels of Dashiell Hammett”

  6 Copy quote

• Listen, darling, tomorrow I'll buy you a whole lot of detective stories, but don't worry your pretty little head over mysteries tonight.

  Dashiell Hammett

  Worry, Stories, Tonight

  Dashiell Hammett (1965). “The novels of Dashiell Hammett”

  42 Copy quote

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

  Dashiell Hammett

  Inspirational, Men, People

  Dashiell Hammett (1965). “The novels of Dashiell Hammett”

  18 Copy quote

• When you write, you want fame, fortune and personal satisfaction. You want to write what you want to write and feel it's good, and you want this to go on for hundreds of years. You're not likely ever to get all these things, and you're not likely to give up writing and commit suicide if you don't, but that is -- and should be -- your goal. Anything else is kind of piddling.

  Dashiell Hammett

  Suicide, Giving Up, Writing

  16 Copy quote

• He felt like somebody had taken the lid off life and let him see the works.

  Dashiell Hammett

  Taken, Falcon, Felt

  10 Copy quote

• Nora: "How do you feel?" Nick: "Terrible. I must've gone to bed sober.

  Dashiell Hammett

  Gone, Bed, Sober

  "The Thin Man". Book by Dashiell Hammett, 1929.

  7 Copy quote

• It's sometimes better to pretend I don't hear the sound of somebody in the nearby woods with a shotgun.

  Dashiell Hammett

  Woods, Sound, Sometimes

  Dashiell Hammett (2002). “Selected Letters of Dashiell Hammett, 1921-1960”, Counterpoint Press

  24 Copy quote

• If you have a story that seems worth telling, and you think you can tell it worthily, then the thing for you to do is to tell it, regardless of whether it has to do with sex, sailors or mounted policemen.

  Dashiell Hammett

  Sex, Writing, Thinking

  Dashiell Hammett (2013). “The Hunter and Other Stories”, p.123, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

  10 Copy quote

• Talking is something you can't do judiciously unless you keep in practice.

  Dashiell Hammett

  Talking, Practice, Falcon

  Dashiell Hammett (2007). “Vintage Hammett”, p.136, Vintage

  8 Copy quote

• Most things in San Francisco can be bought or taken.

  Dashiell Hammett

  Taken, San Francisco

  Dashiell Hammett (2010). “The Maltese Falcon”, p.61, Vintage Crime/Black Lizard

  11 Copy quote

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

  Dashiell Hammett

  Cairo, Want, Smooth

  55 Copy quote

• A lot of fancier yarns come from people trying to tell the truth. It’s not easy once you’re out of the habit.

  Dashiell Hammett

  Yarn, People, Trying

  "The Thin Man". Book by Dashiell Hammett, 1929.

  9 Copy quote

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