Dashiell Hammett

“He did not smile. "I don't believe in anything, but I'm too much of a gambler not to be affected by a lot of things.”

“If the Old Man said something was so, then it probably was, because he was one of these cautious babies who'll look out the window at a cloudburst and say, "It seems to be raining," on the off-chance that somebody's pouring water off the roof.”

“Samuel Spade's jaw was long and bony, his chin a jutting v under the more flexible v ofhis mouth. His nostrils curved back to make another, smaller, v. His yellow-grey eyes werehorizontal. The V motif was picked up again by thickish brows rising outward from twin creasesabove a hooked nose, and his pale brown hair grew down--from high flat temples--in a point onhis forehead. He looked rather pleasantly like a blond Satan.”

“The boy spoke two words, the first a short guttural verb, the second “you.”

“That's wonderful. I do like a man that tells you right out he’s looking out for himself. Don’t we all? I don’t trust a man that says he’s not. And the man that’s telling the truth when he says he’s not I distrust most of all, because he’s and ass and an ass that’s going contrary to the laws of nature.”

“He said: "I'm going to send you over. The chances are you'll get off with life. That means you'll be out again in twenty years. You're an angel. I'll wait for you." He cleared his throat. "If they hang you I'll always remember you.”

“Now I pass up about twenty-five or thirty thousand of honest gain because I like being a detective, like the work. And liking work makes you want to do it as well as you can. Otherwise there’d be no sense to it. That’s the fix I am in. I don’t know anything else, don’t enjoy anything else, don’t want to know or enjoy anything else. You can’t weight that against any sum of money. Money’s good stuff. I haven’t anything against it.”

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

“Yes,' Spade growled. 'And when you're slapped you'll take it and like it.' He released Cairo's wrist and with a thick open hand struck the side of his face three times savagely.”

“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.”

“I distrust a man that says when. If he's got to be careful not to drink to much it's because he's not to be trusted when he does.”

“You ought to have known I'd do it!" My voice sounded harsh and savage like a stranger's in my ears. "Didn't I steal a crutch from a cripple?”

“Brigid O'Shaughnessy: “I haven't lived a good life. I've been bad, worse than you could know.” Sam Spade “You know, that's good, because if you actually were as innocent as you pretend to be, we'd never get anywhere”

“Listen, Dundy, it's been a long time since I burst into tears because a policeman didn't like me.”

“I know a man who once stole a Ferris-wheel”

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

“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.”

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

“Nick: "Don't you think maybe a drink would help you to sleep?"Nora: "No, thanks."Nick: "Maybe it would if I took one.”

“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.”

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

“The cheaper the crook, the gaudier the patter.”

“I found I was repeating myself. It is the beginning of the end when you discover you have style.”

“The hell of it, Miss- Is your name Wonderly or Leblanc?' She blushed and murmured: 'It's really O'Shaughnessy - Brigid O'Shaughnessy”

“I first heard Personville called Poisonville by a red-haired mucker named Hickey Dewey in the Big Ship in Butte. He also called his shirt a shoit.”

“So that's the way you scientific detectives work. My god! for a fat, middle-aged, hard-boiled, pig-headed guy, you've got the vaguest way of doing things I ever heard of.”

“-Desapareció - dijo Spade - como desaparece un puño cuando se abre la mano.”

“It's tough, him getting it like that. Miles had his faults same as the rest of us, but I guess he must've had some good points too.”

“The face she made at me was probably meant for a smile. Whatever it was, it beat me. I was afraid she'd do it again, so I surrendered”

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

“...What disturbed him was the discovery that in sensibly ordering his affairs he had got out of step, and not into step, with Life.”

“I once knew a man who stole a Ferris Wheel...”

“He looked rather pleasantly, like a blonde satan.”

“When a man's partner is killed he's supposed to do something about it. It doesn't make any difference what you thought of him. He was your partner and you're supposed to do something about it. Then it happens we were in the detective business. Well, when one of your organization gets killed it's bad business to let the killer get away with it. It's bad all around-bad for that one organization, bad for every detective everywhere. Sam Spade”

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

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

“To swipe the immortal lines uttered by Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon, a great mystery should take "the lid off life and let [you] look at the works.”

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

“I couldn't be fonder of you if you were my own son. But, well, if you lose a son, its possible to get another. There's only one Maltese Falcon.”

“We didn't exactly believe your story.'Then --?''We believed your two hundred dollars.''You mean --' She seemed not to know what he meant.'I mean that you paid us more than if you'd been telling the truth,' he explained blandly, 'and enough more to make it all right.”

“I hope they don't hang you, precious, by that sweet neck. Yes, angel, I'm gonna send you over. The chances are you'll get off with life. That means if you're a good girl, you'll be out in 20 years. I'll be waiting for you. If they hang you, I'll always remember you. (Sam Spade to Brigid O'Shaughnessy)”

“When he awakened again he could stand, and did. He doused his head in cold water and drank four glasses of water. The water made him sick and after that he began to shake with a chill. He went into the bedroom and lay down on the bare blood-stained mattress, but got up almost immediately to go stumbling and staggering in haste back to the bathroom, where he got down on hands and knees and searched the floor until he had found the rusty razor-blade. He sat on the floor and put the razor-blade into his vest-pocket. Putting it in, his fingers touched his lighter. He took the lighter out and looked at it. A cunning gleam came into his one open eye as he looked at the lighter. The gleam was not sane.”

“She grinned at me. 'You got types?''Only you darling - lanky brunettes with wicked jaws.”

“You're drunk, and I'm drunk, and I'm just exactly drunk enough to tell you anything you want to know. That's the kind of girl I am. If I like a person, I'll tell them anything they want to know. Just ask me. Go ahead, ask me.”

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