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Quotes by

Raymond Chandler

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

The motion picture made in Hollywood, if it is to create art at all, must do so within such strangling limitations of subject and treatment that it is a blind wonder it ever achieves any distinction beyond the purely mechanical slickness of a glass and chromium bathroom. – Raymond Chandler

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

Some are able and humane men and some are low-grade individuals with the morals of a goat, the artistic integrity of a slot machine, and the manners of a floorwalker with delusions of grandeur. – Raymond Chandler

They dont want you until you have made a name, and by the time you have made a name, you have developed some kind of talent they cant use. All they will do is spoil it, if you let them. – Raymond Chandler

A good story cannot be devised; it has to be distilled. – Raymond Chandler

The boys with their feet on the desks know that the easiest murder case in the world to break is the one somebody tried to get very cute with; the one that really bothers them is the murder somebody only thought of two minutes before he pulled it off. – Raymond Chandler

I said something which gave you to think I hated cats. But gad, sir, I am one of the most fanatical cat lovers in the business. If you hate them, I may learn to hate you. If your allergies hate them, I will tolerate the situation to the best of my ability. – Raymond Chandler

Your rat tail is all the fashion now. I prefer a bushy plume, carried straight up. You are Siamese and your ancestors lived in trees. Mine lived in palaces. It has been suggested to me that I am a bit of a snob. How true! I prefer to be. – Raymond Chandler

The making of a picture ought surely to be a rather fascinating adventure. It is not; it is an endless contention of tawdry egos, some of them powerful, almost all of them vociferous, and almost none of them capable of anything much more creative than credit-stealing and self-promotion. – Raymond Chandler

It is pretty obvious that the debasement of the human mind caused by a constant flow of fraudulent advertising is no trivial thing. There is more than one way to conquer a country. – Raymond Chandler

Ive found that there are only two kinds that are any good: slang that has established itself in the language, and slang that you make up yourself. Everything else is apt to be pass? before it gets into print. – Raymond Chandler

The moment a man begins to talk about technique thats proof that he is fresh out of ideas. – Raymond Chandler

Alcohol is like love. The first kiss is magic, the second is intimate, the third is routine. After that you take the girls clothes off. – Raymond Chandler

Ability is what youre capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it. – Raymond Chandler

Television is just one more facet of that considerable segment of our society that never had any standard but the soft buck. – Raymond Chandler

Most critical writing is drivel and half of it is dishonest. It is a short cut to oblivion, anyway. Thinking in terms of ideas destroys the power to think in terms of emotions and sensations. – Raymond Chandler

Chess is the most elaborate waste of human intelligence outside of an advertising agency. – Raymond Chandler

Chess is as elaborate a waste of human intelligence as you can find outside an advertising agency. – Raymond Chandler

He looked about as inconspicuous as a tarantula on a slice of angel food. – Raymond Chandler