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b91d4a4
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The problem with putting two and two together is that sometimes you get four, and sometimes you get twenty-two.
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Dashiell Hammett |
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70c0000
|
Who shot him? I asked. The grey man scratched the back of his neck and said: Somebody with a gun.
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Dashiell Hammett |
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1aee5e6
|
He looked rather pleasantly, like a blonde satan.
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Dashiell Hammett |
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cc68282
|
You're drunk, and I'm drunk, and I'm just exactly drunk enough to tell you anything you want to know. That's the kind of girl I am. If I like a person, I'll tell them anything they want to know. Just ask me. Go ahead, ask me.
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Dashiell Hammett |
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352c8fb
|
Nora: "How do you feel?" Nick: "Terrible. I must've gone to bed sober."
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Dashiell Hammett |
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5c15fc8
|
Joel Cairo: You always have a very smooth explanation ready. Sam Spade: What do you want me to do, learn to stutter?
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humour
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Dashiell Hammett |
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ace4402
|
We didn't exactly believe your story.' Then --?' 'We believed your two hundred dollars.' 'You mean --' She seemed not to know what he meant. 'I mean that you paid us more than if you'd been telling the truth,' he explained blandly, 'and enough more to make it all right.
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Dashiell Hammett |
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8265519
|
She grinned at me. 'You got types?' 'Only you darling - lanky brunettes with wicked jaws.
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Dashiell Hammett |
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8922d3c
|
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.
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Dashiell Hammett |
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c88a861
|
I haven't laughed so much over anything since the hogs ate my kid brother.
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Dashiell Hammett |
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9035370
|
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
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Dashiell Hammett |
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e540817
|
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.
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Dashiell Hammett |
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8c37f07
|
He felt like somebody had taken the lid off life and let him see the works.
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Dashiell Hammett |
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2b33477
|
My way of learning is to heave a wild and unpredictable monkey-wrench into the machinery.
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Dashiell Hammett |
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3a11692
|
The cheaper the crook, the gaudier the patter.
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patter
crooks
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Dashiell Hammett |
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5620318
|
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"
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Dashiell Hammett |
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cc75aff
|
The face she made at me was probably meant for a smile. Whatever it was, it beat me. I was afraid she'd do it again, so I surrendered
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wry
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Dashiell Hammett |
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baabaf6
|
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)
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Dashiell Hammett |
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781d0a2
|
Nick: "Don't you think maybe a drink would help you to sleep?" Nora: "No, thanks." Nick: "Maybe it would if I took one."
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Dashiell Hammett |
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a580de1
|
To get what he wanted, a man had to give other people what they wanted.
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Dashiell Hammett |
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6176984
|
I guess I can put two and two together." "Sometimes the answer's four," I said, "and sometimes it's twenty-two..."
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humor
smartass
mathematics
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Dashiell Hammett |
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3e1aa54
|
Listen, Dundy, it's been a long time since I burst into tears because a policeman didn't like me.
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Dashiell Hammett |
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08718ff
|
He said: "I'm going to send you over. The chances are you'll get off with life. That means you'll be out again in twenty years. You're an angel. I'll wait for you." He cleared his throat. "If they hang you I'll always remember you."
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Dashiell Hammett |
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3afb77a
|
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 wen..
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Dashiell Hammett |
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f132ca4
|
Talking is something you can't do judiciously unless you keep in practice.
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Dashiell Hammett |
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bd323f0
|
I'll give you your Christmas present now if you'll give me mine." I shook my head. "At breakfast." "But it's Christmas now." "Breakfast." "Whatever you're giving me," she said, "I hope I don't like it." "You'll have to keep them anyway, because the man at the Aquarium said he positively wouldn't take them back. He said they'd already bitten the tails off the..."
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Dashiell Hammett |
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42dfdf9
|
This damned burg's getting me. If I don't get away soon I'll be going blood-simple like the natives.
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Dashiell Hammett |
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c40329c
|
Listen, darling, tomorrow I'll buy you a whole lot of detective stories, but don't worry your pretty little head over mysteries tonight.
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Dashiell Hammett |
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1951a81
|
So that's the way you scientific detectives work. My god! for a fat, middle-aged, hard-boiled, pig-headed guy, you've got the vaguest way of doing things I ever heard of.
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noir
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Dashiell Hammett |
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ecc048c
|
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."
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men
women
crooks
dames
dashiell-hammet
the-thin-man
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Dashiell Hammett |
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e50a364
|
Yes,' Spade growled. 'And when you're slapped you'll take it and like it.' He released Cairo's wrist and with a thick open hand struck the side of his face three times savagely.
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humour
gumshoe
|
Dashiell Hammett |
|
fc57329
|
You always have, I must say, a smooth explanation ready." "What do you want me to do? Learn to stutter?"
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Dashiell Hammett |
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4df8e00
|
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.
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sober
new-york-city
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Dashiell Hammett |
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a1d4708
|
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.
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spade
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Dashiell Hammett |
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8fe314c
|
I said: "All right, talk, but do you mind putting the gun away? My wife doesn't care, but I'm pregnant and I don't want the child to be born with..."
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humor
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Dashiell Hammett |
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056405c
|
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 ..
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humor
|
Dashiell Hammett |
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abe58ae
|
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.
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Dashiell Hammett |
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a179189
|
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."
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humor
wink
|
Dashiell Hammett |
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5710482
|
I don't mind a reasonable amount of trouble.
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|
mystery-classics
sam-spade
whodunit
|
Dashiell Hammett |
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2947e13
|
But besides, I haven't the time, I'm too busy trying to see that you don't lose any of the money I married you for.
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Dashiell Hammett |
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9374729
|
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."
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Dashiell Hammett |
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31e7167
|
Don't be so damned patronizing. Your performance so far has been a little less than dazzling." "I didn't mean no harm," I said and kissed her. "That a new dress?" "Ah! Changing the subject, you coward."
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humorous
funny
patronizing
coward
|
Dashiell Hammett |
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1c50568
|
When he awakened again he could stand, and did. He doused his head in cold water and drank four glasses of water. The water made him sick and after that he began to shake with a chill. He went into the bedroom and lay down on the bare blood-stained mattress, but got up almost immediately to go stumbling and staggering in haste back to the bathroom, where he got down on hands and knees and searched the floor until he had found the rusty razo..
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Dashiell Hammett |
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3d2990a
|
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."
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Dashiell Hammett |