The Big Sleep Quotes

A racket like that, out in the open on the boulevard, seemed to mean plenty of protection. I sat there and poisoned myself with cigarette smoke and listened to the rain and thought about it. (5.35)

"Vivian is spoiled, exacting, smart and quite ruthless. Carmen is a child who likes to pull wings off flies. Neither of them has any more moral sense than a cat. Neither have I. No Sternwood ever h...

It wasn't the law. They would have been there still, just about getting warmed up with their pieces of string and chalk and their cameras and dusting powders and their nickel cigars. They would hav...

"You can't make much money in this trade, if you're honest. If you have a front, you're making money—or expecting to." "Oh—are you honest?" she asked and opened her bag. […]"Painfully." (11.1...

"And I don't like your manners.""I'm not crazy about yours," I said. "[…] I don't mind if you don't like my manners. They're pretty bad. I grieve over them during the long winter evenings. But do...

I was everything a well-dressed private detective ought to be. I was calling on four million dollars. (1.1)

His [Geiger's] glass eye shone brightly up at me and was by far the most life-like thing about him. At a glance none of the three shots I heard had missed. He was very dead. (7. 5)

[S]he lowered her lashes until they almost cuddled her cheeks and slowly raised them again, like a theater curtain. I was to get to know that trick. That was supposed to make me roll over on my bac...