Dashiell Quotes & Sayings

Jerome Falsoner, aged forty-five, was a bachelor who lived alone in a flat on Cathedral Street, on an income more than sufficient for his comfort. He was a tall man, but of a delicate physique, the result, it may have been, of excessive indulgence on a constitution none too strong in the beginning. He was well-known, at least by sight, to all night-living Baltimoreans, and to those who frequented race-track, gambling-house, and the furtive cockpits that now and then materialize for a few brief hours in the forty miles of country that lie between Baltimore and Washington. — Dashiell Hammett

Strictly speaking, there are no real substitutes for sexual satisfaction. — Dashiell Hammett

Our lawyers had their chat with the Supreme Court Justice, and promised to repast the chat to other members of the Supreme Court to find out whether they wanted to hear us out. — Dashiell Hammett

Quinn came over to refill his glass. He looked towards the bedroom door. "Where'd you find the little blonde?"
"Used to bounce it on my knee."
"Which knew?" he asked. "Could I touch it? — Dashiell Hammett

She grinned at me. 'You got types?'
'Only you darling - lanky brunettes with wicked jaws. — Dashiell Hammett

Gilbert put down the magazine he was looking at and politely said he hoped I was recovering from my injury. I said I was.
"I've never been hurt, really hurt," he went on, "that I can remember. I've tried hurting myself, of course, but that's not the same thing. It just made me uncomfortable and irritable and sweat a lot."
"That's pretty much the same thing," I said. — Dashiell Hammett

With 'Brick' there was the Dashiell Hammett influence, and with 'Brothers Bloom' there was a really strong Fellini influence - both those movies wore that on their sleeve. — Rian Johnson

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 — Dashiell Hammett

It's probably polite to pretend you don't see people coming out of pawnshops, anyhow. — Dashiell Hammett

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. — Dashiell Hammett

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

Dorothy's coming up. I think she's tight."
"That's great." I picked up my bathrobe. "I was afraid I was going to have to get some sleep."
She was bending over looking for her slippers. "Don't be such an old fluff. You can sleep all day." She found her slippers and stood up in them. "Is she really as afraid of her mother as she says?"
"If she's got any sense. Mimi's poison."
Nora screwed up her dark eyes at me and asked slowly: "What are you holding out on me?"
"Oh, dear," I said, " I was hoping I wouldn't have to tell you. Dorothy is really my daughter. I didn't know what I was doing, Nora. It was spring in Venice and I was so young and there was a moon over the ... "
"Be funny. Don't you want something to eat? — Dashiell Hammett

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. I didn't think anything of what he had done to the city's name. Later I heard men who could manage their r's give it the same pronunciation. I still didn't see anything in it but the meaningless sort of humor that used to make richardsnary the thieves' word for dictionary. A few years later I went to Personville and learned better. — Dashiell Hammett

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. — Dashiell Hammett

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

If you aren't normal, it's because you're tougher, saner, cooler than normal. — Dashiell Hammett

He felt like somebody had taken the lid off life and let him see the works. — Dashiell Hammett

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. (Kasper Gutman) — Dashiell Hammett

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. — Dashiell Hammett

I was two pavements from my destination when somebodey S-s-s-s-s'd at me.
I probably didn't jump twenty feet. — Dashiell Hammett

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. — Dashiell Hammett

I don t mind a reasonable amount of trouble. — Dashiell Hammett

I haven't laughed so much over anything since the hogs ate my kid brother. — Dashiell Hammett

It was a good trick, only it didn't work. In — Dashiell Hammett

You're not going to go around poking at the fire and straightening up the room again, are you? — Dashiell Hammett

I said: "You don't want to pick a fight with me, Mimi."
She looked at me as if she were going to say I love you, and asked: "Is that a threat? — Dashiell Hammett

I wrote my graduate thesis at New York University on hard-boiled fiction from the 1930s and 1940s, so, for about two years, I read nothing but Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, James Cain and Chester Himes. I developed such a love for this kind of writing. — Megan Abbott

[Spade] scowled at Gutman and burst out irritably: Jesus God! is this the first thing you guys ever stole? You're a fine lot of lollipops! What are you going to do next
get down and pray? — Dashiell Hammett

With what dope I got I think it fills me in pretty well. — Dashiell Hammett

If a man says a thing often enough, he is very likely to acquire some sort of faith in it sooner or later. — Dashiell Hammett

Dorothy wants to talk to you. Don't ask her to eat with us."
When Nora returned from the telephone she had a look in her eye. "Now what's up?" I asked.
"Nothing. Just 'how are you' and all that."
I said: "if you're lying to the old man, God'll punish you. — Dashiell Hammett

What I try to do is write a story about a detective rather than a detective story. Keeping the reader fooled until the last, possible moment is a good trick and I usually try to play it, but I can't attach more than secondary importance to it. The puzzle isn't so interesting to me as the behavior of the detective attacking it. — Dashiell Hammett

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) — Dashiell Hammett

You don't pay a prostitute for sex, you pay her to leave afterwards. — Dashiell Hammett

He's cute," I said.
"Uh-huh," the grey man agreed, "and so's dynamite. — Dashiell Hammett

I don't know much about him; never heard him say more than nope or yup. — Dashiell Hammett

He's the guy that the joke was wrote about: 'Is he a criminal lawyer?' 'Yes, very. — Dashiell Hammett

you'll have your city back, all nice and clean and ready to go to the dogs again — Dashiell Hammett

Walking around the ragged exterior of Ramsay House, Amelia talked animatedly with John Dashiell, asking about his past projects, his ambitions, and whether there were difficulties in working with one's brother.
"We knock heads quite often, I'm afraid," Dashiell replied, squinting against the afternoon sun. A quick grin illuminated his face. "We both hate to compromise. I accuse him of being set in his ways, and he accuses me of arrogance. The pity of it is, we're both right. — Lisa Kleypas

I have not killed anyone. They will not let me. — Dashiell Hammett

Studsy returned alone. "Maybe I'm wrong," he said as he sat down, "but I think somebody could do something with that cluck if they took hold of her right."
Morelli said: "By the throat."
Studsy grinned good-naturedly. "No. She's trying to get somewhere. She works hard at her singing lessons and - — Dashiell Hammett

He looked rather pleasantly, like a blonde satan. — Dashiell Hammett

The problem with putting two and two together is that sometimes you get four, and sometimes you get twenty-two. — Dashiell Hammett

I've been as bad an influence on American literature as anyone I can think of. — Dashiell Hammett

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. — Dashiell Hammett

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

You're not supposed to give people things unless you're sure they'd like to get them from you ... [B]ut it goes deeper than that. when you give somebody something, you're saying out loud that you know they'd like to have you give -
Ned Beaumont, The Glass Key — Dashiell Hammett

The cheaper the crook, the gaudier the patter. — Dashiell Hammett

Steve Forman is a brutally funny writer. His no-nonsense, unadorned style begs comparison to Dashiell Hammett, but Hammett's humor at its darkest never hit home this hard. Reading of Eddie Perlmutter's exploits is like rolling in an aisle paved with broken glass and wanting to do it all over again two minutes later. — Loren D. Estleman

My way of learning is to heave a wild and unpredictable monkey-wrench into the machinery. — Dashiell Hammett

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? — Dashiell Hammett

You got to look on the bright side, even if there ain't one. — Dashiell Hammett

The boy spoke two words, the first a short guttural verb, the second you. — Dashiell Hammett

Listen, darling, tomorrow I'll buy you a whole lot of detective stories, but don't worry your pretty little head over mysteries tonight. — Dashiell Hammett

A lot of fancier yarns come from people trying to tell the truth. It's not easy once you're out of the habit. — Dashiell Hammett

Be still while I get up or I'll make an opening in your head for brains to leak in. — Dashiell Hammett

It's sometimes better to pretend I don't hear the sound of somebody in the nearby woods with a shotgun. — Dashiell Hammett

I definitely have an affection for detective fiction, and when I first read Dashiell Hammett's 'The Maltese Falcon,' that book and its author made an enormous impression on me as a reader and a writer, and led me to other hard-boiled American writers like Raymond Chandler and Ross McDonald, among many. — Avi

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. — Dashiell Hammett

I found I was repeating myself. It is the beginning of the end when you discover you have style. — Dashiell Hammett

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. — Dashiell Hammett

That's Mama, divorces a lunatic and marries a gigolo. — Dashiell Hammett

You know Quinn?" Macaulay asked me.
"Ten minutes ago I was putting him to bed."
Macaulay grinned. "I hope you keep his acquaintance like that - social"
"Meaning what?"
Macaulay's grin became rueful. "He used to be my broker, and his advice led me right up to the poorhouse steps."
"That's sweet," I said. "he's my broker now and I'm following his advice." Macaulay and the girl laughed. I pretended I was laughing and returned to my table. — Dashiell Hammett

She's cute, but she's cuckoo. She wouldn't be his daughter if she wasn't. You can't tell how much of what she says is what she thinks. And you can't tell how much of what she thinks ever really happened. — Dashiell Hammett

We found a table. Nora said: "She's pretty."
"If you like them like that."
She grinned at me. "You got types?"
"Only you, darling - lanky brunettes with wicked jaws."
"And how about the red-head you wandered off with at Quinns' last night?"
"That's silly," I said. "She just wanted to show me some French etchings. — Dashiell Hammett

But that's the part of it I always liked. He adjusted himself to beams falling, and then no more of them fell, and he adjusted himself to them not falling. — Dashiell Hammett

Men came in and dragged us apart. It took us five minutes to bring Nora to. She sat up holding her cheek and looked around the room until she saw Morelli, nippers on one wrist, standing between two detectives. Morelli's face was a mess: the coppers had worked him over a little just for the fun of it. Nora glared at me. "You damned fool," she said, "you didn't have to knock me cold. I knew you'd take him, but I wanted to see it."
One of the coppers laughed. "Jesus," he said admiringly, "there's a woman with hair on her chest. — Dashiell Hammett

I've been wanting to have a child since Dashiell was 1, but I was working too much, and there was a lot going on in my relationship. — Sophie B. Hawkins

Your playmates sent him?" I asked, nodding at the dead man. "I only talked to him with this," he said, patting the automatic on the bed, "but I reckon they did." "How did it happen?" "It happened simple enough. I heard the door opening, and I switched on the light, and there he was, and I shot him, and there he is. — Dashiell Hammett

Our friend Nunheim was filled full of .32s just about an hour after he copped the sneak on us - deader'n hell. The pills look like they come from the same gun that cut down the Wolf dame. The experts are matching 'em up now. I guess he wishes he'd stayed and talked to us. — Dashiell Hammett

Alice opened the door when I rang. She had on green pyjamas and held a hairbrush in one hand. She looked wearily at Quinn and spoke wearily: "Bring it in."
I took it in and spread it on a bed. It mumbled something I could not make out and moved one hand feebly back and forth, but its eyes stayed shut. — Dashiell Hammett

Nora was eating a piece of cold duck with one hand and working on a jig-saw puzzle with the other when I got home.
"I thought you'd gone to live with her," she said. "You used to be a detective: find me a brownish piece shaped something like a snail with a long neck."
"Piece of duck or puzzle? ... — Dashiell Hammett

But this month is all about CITY OF JASMINE which I hope you already have in your hot little hands. My favorite review snippet? KIRKUS REVIEWS said it's "part screwball comedy".
I can't tell you how much time I spent with Carole Lombard and William Powell and Irene Dunne when I was writing it. I adore the 30s comedies for their light-hearted take on relationships and adventure - and the glamorous settings and occasional dash of intrigue only heighten the magic. (Did you know that Nicholas Brisbane from my Lady Julia series was named for THE THIN MAN's Nick Charles? And apologies to Dashiell Hammett, but I fell in love with the film long before I read the book and appreciated how much it had been lightened in the adaptation!) So when you're reading CITY OF JASMINE, give some thought to who you'd like to see playing Evie and Gabriel - I'd love to hear who you'd cast in your own production. — Deanna Raybourn

Dorothy asked timidly: "Did his wife say anything?
"She sent her love to you."
Nora said: "Stop being nasty. — Dashiell Hammett

I lost myself immediately in one of the books, only emerging when the phone rang.
"Dashiell?" my father intoned. As if someone else with my voice might be answering the phone at my mother's apartment.
"Yes, Father?"
"Leeza and I would like to wish you a merry Christmas."
"Thank you, Father. And to you, as well."
[awkward pause]
[even more awkward pause]
"I hope your mother isn't giving you any trouble."
Oh, Father, I love it when you play this game.
"She told me if I clean all the ashes out of the grate, then I'll be able to help my sisters get ready for the ball."
"It's Christmas, Dashiell. Can't you give that attitude a rest?"
"Merry Christmas, Dad. And thanks for the presents."
"What presents?"
"I'm sorry - those were all from Mom, weren't they?"
"Dashiell ... "
"I gotta go. The gingerbread men are on — Rachel Cohn

I just tell you what happens. I don't explain it. — Dashiell Hammett

To get what he wanted, a man had to give other people what they wanted. — Dashiell Hammett

Most things in San Francisco can be bought or taken. — Dashiell Hammett

His wife was a tall, stringy woman, perhaps five years older than her husband - say, forty - with a mouth and chin that seemed shaped for gossiping. — Dashiell Hammett

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. — Dashiell Hammett

What do people think about my staying with Harrison with him chasing everything that's hot and hollow? — Dashiell Hammett

I have to have another child. I have to bring someone into this world that will be here for Dashiell. — Sophie B. Hawkins

I haven't any sort of plans for the future but I reckon things will work out in some manner. — 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. — Dashiell Hammett

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. — Dashiell Hammett

Raymond Chandler once wrote that Dashiell Hammett gave murder back to the people who really committed it. — James Ellroy

The roof might fall in; anything could happen. — Dashiell Hammett

I deserve all the love you can spare me. And I want a lot more than I deserve. — Dashiell Hammett

He opened the door wider. "He's waiting." He gave me what was probably meant to be a significant wink, but a corner of his mouth moved more than his eye did and the result was a fairly startling face. — Dashiell Hammett

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. — Dashiell Hammett

Samuel Spade's jaw was long and bony, his chin a jutting v under the more flexible v of his mouth. His nostrils curved back to make another, smaller, v. His yellow-grey eyes were horizontal. The v motif was picked up again by thickish brows rising outward from twin creases above a hooked nose, and his pale brown hair grew down - from high flat temples - in a point on his forehead. He looked rather pleasantly like a blond satan. — Dashiell Hammett

I once knew a man who stole a Ferris Wheel... — Dashiell Hammett

Another man whose social life has ruined him. — Dashiell Hammett

The outcome of successful planning always looks like luck to saps. — Dashiell Hammett

Thanks for the information about what we call business. — Dashiell Hammett

Feed the lettuce to the bunny and eat the bunny — Dashiell Hammett

I guess I can put two and two together."
"Sometimes the answer's four," I said, "and sometimes it's twenty-two ... — Dashiell Hammett

I've always thought hard-boiled detective novels an American art form. At their best, they're more than who-dun-its or thrillers, they're vehicles for a writer's observations about culture, politics, philosophy, music, history and a time or a place. Or life, it's ownself. When you read James Ellroy, Dashiell Hammett or James Lee Burke, their stories are always about far more than good guys chasing bad guys. That's the kind of book I wanted to write. Still do. — Jim Nesbitt

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. — Dashiell Hammett

Gutman smiled benignly at him and said: Well, Wilmer, I'm sorry indeed to lose you, and I want you to know that I couldn't be any fonder of you if you were my own son; but - well, by Gad! - if you lose a son it's possible to get another - and there's only one Maltese falcon. — Dashiell Hammett