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

A really good detective never gets married.
Raymond Chandler

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

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

An age which is incapable of poetry is incapable of any kind of literature except the cleverness of a decadence.
Raymond Chandler

At least half the mystery novels published violate the law that the solution, once revealed, must seem to be inevitable.
Raymond Chandler

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

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

Everything a writer learns about the art or craft of fiction takes just a little away from his need or desire to write at all. In the end he knows all the tricks and has nothing to say.
Raymond Chandler

From 30 feet away she looked like a lot of class. From 10 feet away she looked like something made up to be seen from 30 feet away.
Raymond Chandler


Good critical writing is measured by the perception and evaluation of the subject; bad critical writing by the necessity of maintaining the professional standing of the critic.
Raymond Chandler

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

I certainly admire people who do things.
Raymond Chandler

I do a great deal of research - particularly in the apartments of tall blondes.
Raymond Chandler

I guess God made Boston on a wet Sunday.
Raymond Chandler

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

I think a man ought to get drunk at least twice a year just on principle, so he won't let himself get snotty about it.
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

It is not a fragrant world.
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