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

“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?”

“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.”

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

“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.”

“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”

“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.”