Sam Spade Quotes & Sayings

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

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

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

Sam Spade is as gray as the economic skies over America and moves through the story as cool and slick as a Teflon cat. — Stephen Sullivan

You're about to meet a new great dame of crime fiction in Death Was the Other Woman. Linda L. Richards does a stunning job in creating a character with a voice and eye right out of a 1930s L.A. hard-boiled classic: guns and gams, booze and bodies, peepers and perps. Move over, Sam Spade: Kitty Pangborn is on the case. — Linda Fairstein

Kinsey Millhone is a female Sam Spade; a thorough professional, a loner, clear-headed and unsentimental. — Lucille Kallen

I brush off my skirt and notice that a small trail of blood runs from a nasty scrape on my knee. I don't even care. I'm still on an oh-so-sweet adrenaline high.

Porter grins, eyebrows high. "Damn, Bailey. You took him downtown. Full-on atomic drop body slam. I had no idea you had it in you."

Me neither, to be honest. "No one steals from Sam Spade and gets away with it," I say.

He holds his hand up, and I slap it — Jenn Bennett

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

Jamie popped a handful of Skittles into his bottle of Grolsch. He took a swig and savoured the tangy sweets shrinking in his mouth. He glanced up at the pictures on the pub wall: Alexander Graham Bell, Busby the bird and Sam Spade. The picture of Bogart made Jamie want to put a fag in his mouth — Nasser Hashmi

You're a good man, sister — Humphrey Bogart

Joel Cairo: You always have a very smooth explanation ready.
Sam Spade: What do you want me to do, learn to stutter? — Dashiell Hammett

I certainly wish you would have invented a more reasonable story. I felt distinctly like an idiot repeating it. Sam Spade (The Maltese Falcon) — Dashiell Hammett

I'm a detective, but nuns could stonewall Sam Spade into an asylum — Dennis Lehane

And when you're slapped you'll take it and like it." - Detective Sam Spade — Dashiell Hammett