Top 300 Raymond Chandler Quotes (2026 Update)
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101. “It is not funny that a man should be killed, but it is sometimes funny that he should be killed for so little, and that his death should be the coin of what we call civilization.”

— Raymond Chandler

102. “Mostly I just kill time,” he said, “and it dies hard.”

— Raymond Chandler

103. “There was a sad fellow over on a bar stool talking to the bartender, who was polishing a glass and listening with that plastic smile people wear when they are trying not to scream.”

— Raymond Chandler

104. “The best way to find out if you have any friends is to go broke. The ones that hang on longest are your friends. I don’t mean the ones that hang on forever. There aren’t any of those.”

— Raymond Chandler

105. “I’m in a wild mood tonight. I want to go dance in the foam. I hear the banshees calling.”

— Raymond Chandler

106. “A real gimlet is half gin and half Rose’s lime juice and nothing else.”

— Raymond Chandler

107. “The character that lasts is an ordinary guy with some extraordinary qualities.”

— Raymond Chandler

Featured in: Reading Quotes

108. “The coffee shop smell was strong enough to build a garage on.”

— Raymond Chandler

Featured in: Strong Quotes

109. “You’re not human tonight, Marlowe.”

— Raymond Chandler

110. “Her eyes narrowed until they were a faint greenish glitter, like a forest pool far back in the shadow of trees.”

— Raymond Chandler

111. “The most durable thing in writing is style, and style is the single most valuable investment a writer can make with his time.”

— Raymond Chandler

112. “Dashiell Hammett took murder out of theVenetian vase and dropped it into the alley.”

— Raymond Chandler

113. “She gave me a smile I could feel in my hip pocket.”

— Raymond Chandler

114. “A writer who is afraid to overreach himself is as useless as a general who is afraid to be wrong.”

— Raymond Chandler

115. “A wedge of sunlight slipped over the edge of the desk and fell noiselessly to the carpet.”

— Raymond Chandler

116. “I guess God made Boston on a wet Sunday.”

— Raymond Chandler

117. “I knew one thing: as soon as anyone said you didn’t need a gun, you’d better take one along that worked.”

— Raymond Chandler

118. “Her whole body shivered and her face fell apart like a bride’s pie crust. She put it together again slowly, as if lifting a great weight, by sheer will power. The smile came back, with a couple of corners badly bent.”

— Raymond Chandler

119. “The trouble with cops is not that they’re dumb or crooked or tough, but that they think just being a cop gives them a little something that they didn’t have before. Maybe it did once, but not anymore. They’re topped by too many smart minds.”

— Raymond Chandler

120. “A man who drinks too much on occasion is still the same man as he was sober. An alcoholic, a real alcoholic, is not the same man at all. You can’t predict anything about him for sure except that he will be someone you never met before.”

— Raymond Chandler

121. “The dilemma of the critic has always been that if he knows enough to speak with authority, he knows too much to speak with detachment.”

— Raymond Chandler

122. “A city no worse than others, a city rich and vigorous and full of pride, a city lost and beaten and full of emptiness.”

— Raymond Chandler

123. “The muzzle of the Luger looked like the mouth of the Second Street tunnel, but I didn’t move. Not being bullet proof is an idea I had had to get used to.”

— Raymond Chandler

124. “Under the thinning fog the surf curled and creamed, almost without sound, like a thought trying to form inself on the edge of consciousness.”

— Raymond Chandler

125. “When I split an infinitive, God damn it, I split it so it stays split.”

— Raymond Chandler

126. “Show me a man or woman who cannot stand mysteries and I will show you a fool, a clever fool – perhaps – but a fool just the same.”

— Raymond Chandler

127. “She’d make for a jazzy week-end, but she’d be wearing for a steady diet.”

— Raymond Chandler

128. “She’s a nice girl. Not my type.” “You don’t like them nice?” He had another cigarette going. The smoke was being fanned away from his face by his hand. “I like smooth shiny girls, hardboiled and loaded with sin.” “They take you to the cleaners,” Randall said indifferently.”

— Raymond Chandler

129. “The tragedy of life, Howard, is not that the beautiful die young, but that they grow old and mean. It will not happen to me.”

— Raymond Chandler

130. “Without magic, there is no art. Without art, there is no idealism. Without idealism, there is no integrity. Without integrity, there is nothing but production.”

— Raymond Chandler

131. “The tragedy of life, is not that the beautiful things die young, but that they grow old and mean.”

— Raymond Chandler

132. “I don’t mind your showing me your legs. They’re very swell legs and it’s a pleasure to make their acquaintace. I don’t mind if you don’t like my manners. They’re pretty bad. I grieve over them during the long winter nights.”

— Raymond Chandler

133. “Doctors are just people, born to sorrow, fighting the long grim fight like the rest of us.”

— Raymond Chandler

134. “The kind of lawyer you hope the other fellow has.”

— Raymond Chandler

135. “It is not a fragrant world.”

— Raymond Chandler

136. “The story is this man’s adventure in search of a hidden truth, and it would be no adventure if it did not happen to a man fit for adventure. If there were enough like him, the world would be a very safe place to live in, without becoming too dull to be worth living in.”

— Raymond Chandler

137. “He sounded like a man who had slept well and didn’t owe too much money.”

— Raymond Chandler

138. “She sighed. “All men are the same.” “So are all women – after the first nine.”

— Raymond Chandler

139. “Whoever had done it had meant business. Dead men are heavier than broken hearts.”

— Raymond Chandler

140. “I had a funny feeling as I saw the house disappear, as though I had written a poem and it was very good and I had lost it and would never remember it again.”

— Raymond Chandler

141. “Courage is a strange thing: One can never be sure of it.”

— Raymond Chandler

142. “When the plot flags, bring in a man with a gun.”

— Raymond Chandler

143. “You can’t have everything, even in California.”

— Raymond Chandler

144. “She lowered her lashes until they almost cuddled her cheeks and slowly raised them again, like a theatre curtain. I was to get to know that trick. That was supposed to make me roll over on my back with all four paws in the air.”

— Raymond Chandler

145. “Newspapers are owned and published by rich men. Rich men all belong to the same club. Sure, there’s competition – hard tough competition for circulation, for newsbeats, for exclusive stories. Just so long as it doesn’t damage the prestige and privilege and position of the owners. If it does, down comes the lid.”

— Raymond Chandler

146. “He was a guy who talked with commas, like a heavy novel. Over the phone anyway.”

— Raymond Chandler

147. “Everything written with vitality expresses that vitality: there are no dull subjects, only dull minds.”

— Raymond Chandler

148. “You can always tell a detective on TV. He never takes his hat off.”

— Raymond Chandler

149. “I didn’t have anything really exiting to drink, like nitroglycerin or distilled tiger breath.”

— Raymond Chandler

150. “I’m a weak character, without guts or ambition. I caught the brass ring and it shocked me to find out it wasn’t gold. A guy like me has one big moment in his life, one perfect swing on the high trapeze. Then he spends the rest of his time trying not to fall off the sidewalk into the gutter.”

— Raymond Chandler