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
~ Dashiell Hammett
He looked rather pleasantly, like a blonde satan.
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.
Joel Cairo: You always have a very smooth explanation ready.Sam Spade: What do you want me to do, learn to stutter?
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.
I've been as bad an influence on American literature as anyone I can think of.
She stared at him dully and said: “I don’t like crooks, and even if I did, I wouldn’t like crooks that are stool-pigeons, and if I liked crooks that are stool-pigeons, I still wouldn’t like you.” She turned to the outer door.
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.
I just tell you what happens. I don't explain it.
The cheaper the crook, the gaudier the patter.
He was the perfect soldier: he went where you sent him, and stayed where you put him, and had no idea of his own to keep him from doing exactly what you told him.
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
To get what he wanted, a man had to give other people what they wanted.
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.
How about a drop of something to cut the phlegm?Why don't you stay sober today?We didn't come to New York to stay sober.
