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f5cac27
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Her voice was a throaty screech, without melody, as false as her eyebrows and as sharp as her nails. (The King in Yellow)
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Raymond Chandler |
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43bb893
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The thin man had a tight voice that expected to be lied to. (The King in Yellow)
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Raymond Chandler |
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933b55e
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Carli's was a small club at the end of a passage between a sporting-goods store and a circulating library. There was a grilled door and a man behind it who had given up trying to look as if it mattered who came in. (Smart-Aleck Kill)
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Raymond Chandler |
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df4a840
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A dark woman with a sharp nose opened her mouth to yell and no sound came from her. There was the instant when nobody makes a sound, when it almost seems as if there will never again be any sound--after the sound of a gun. (Guns at Cyrano's)
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Raymond Chandler |
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f77d984
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His clothes looked as if they had cost a great deal of money and had been slept in. (Guns at Cyrano's)
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Raymond Chandler |
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1fe0376
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It was twenty-five minutes past nine when he got to the corner of Seventh and Spring, where the Metropole was. It was an old hotel that had once been exclusive and was now steering a shaky course between a receivership and a bad name at Headquarters. It had too much oily dark wood paneling, too many chipped gilt mirrors. Too much smoke hung below its low beamed lobby ceiling and too many grifters bummed around in its worn leather rockers. T..
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Raymond Chandler |
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58a1616
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coffee was overtrained and the sandwich was as full of rich flavor as a piece torn off an old shirt.
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Raymond Chandler |
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47fb7bf
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I don't like your manner," Kingsley said in a voice you could have crack a Brazil nut on. "That's all right," I said. "I'm not selling it."
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Raymond Chandler |
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45aa2cb
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One moment, please. Whom did you wish to see?" Degarmo spun on his heel and looked at me wonderingly. "Did he say 'whom'?" "Yeah, but don't hit him," I said. "There is such a word." Degarmo licked his lips. "I knew there was," he said. "I often wondered where they kept it."
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Raymond Chandler |
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dc40f5a
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Racket beer, sonny," he said sadly. "Tasteless as a roadhouse blonde." (Spanish Blood)"
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Raymond Chandler |
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c02f022
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You know who they are?" Tony said softly. "I could maybe give nine guesses. And twelve of them would be right." (I'll be waiting)"
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Raymond Chandler |
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2ea6fe8
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How can such a hard man be so gentle? she asked wonderingly. If I wasn't hard, I wouldn't be alive. If I couldn't ever be gentle, I wouldn't deserve to be alive.
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Raymond Chandler |
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62cf2d3
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I was neat, clean, shaved and sober, and I didn't care who knew it. I
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Raymond Chandler |
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ba8cc44
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The depths cleared again. Something moved in them that was not a board. It rose slowly, with an infinitely careless languor, a long dark twisted something that rolled lazily in the water as it rose. It broke surface casually, lightly, without haste. I saw wool, sodden and black, a leather jerkin blacker than ink, a pair of slacks. I saw shoes and something that bulged nastily between the shoes and the cuffs of the slacks. I saw a wave of da..
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murder
noir-mystery
private-investigator
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Raymond Chandler |
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624d8ef
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Platikh i se otbikh v edin bar, za da izsipia chashka koniak v'rkhu niuiorkskata p'rzhola. Zashcho li i vikakha niuiorkska? Dokolkoto si spomniam stomanenite ploskosti se proizvezhdat v Detroit. Izliazokh da vd'khna malko noshchen v'zdukh, za koito nikoi oshche ne be nameril nachin kak da go prodava. No ne se s'mniavakh, che dosta narod si bl'ska glavata nad tozi problem. I rano ili k'sno shche spoluchi.
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Raymond Chandler |
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ba5e75d
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Her eyes rounded. She was puzzled. She was thinking. I could see, even on that short acquaintance, that thinking was always going to be a bother to her.
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Raymond Chandler |
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95fb3c4
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Then she 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 back with all four paws in the air.
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Raymond Chandler |
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d242e19
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Tsk, tsk," I said, not moving at all. "Such a lot of guns around town and so few brains. You're the second guy I've met within hours who seems to think a gat in the hand means a world by the tail. Put it down and don't be silly, Joe."
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Raymond Chandler |
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d4a0975
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She was wearing a brown tailor-made and from a strap over her shoulder hung one of those awkward-looking square bags that make you think of a Sister of Mercy taking first aid to the wounded.
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Raymond Chandler |
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df688e9
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I sat down on the edge of a deep soft chair and looked at Mrs. Regan. She was worth a stare. She was trouble. She was stretched out on a modernistic chaise-longue with her slippers off, so I stared at her legs in the sheerest silk stockings. They seemed to be arranged to stare at. They were visible to the knee and one of them well beyond. The knees were dimpled, not bony and sharp. The calves were beautiful, the ankles long and slim and wit..
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Raymond Chandler |
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623dbf7
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Tengo una guerra en marcha con la Warner. Tengo una guerra en marcha con el jardinero. Tengo una guerra en marcha con un hombre que vino a arreglar el tocadiscos y arruino dos discos LP. Tengo varias guerras en marcha con gente de la television. A ver quien mas... oh, no importa. Usted ya conoce a Chandler. Siempre peleando por algo.
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Raymond Chandler |
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2018e62
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Carta a James Sandoe, 14 de octubre de 1949. Ahora estoy leyendo "So little time", de Marquand. Recuerdo, o creo recordar, que fue bastante maltratada cuando aparecio, pero a mi me parece llena de ingenio agudo y vivacidad, y en general mucho mas satisfactoria que "Point of no return", que me resulto aburrida en su impacto total, aunque no aburrida mientras se la lee. Tambien empece "A sea change", de Nigel Demis, que parece bien. Pero siem..
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Raymond Chandler |
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1bd7981
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Los editores y otros deberian dejar de preocuparse por la perdida de clientela que puede causarles la television. El tipo que puede soportar un trio de anuncios de desodorantes para mirar a Flashgun Casey y tragarse los elogios a cervezas o a planes usuarios de credito para poder ver a un par de boxeadores de cuarta frotandose las narices contra las cuerdas no es alguien que vaya a perder tiempo leyendo libros.
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Raymond Chandler |
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c9e5e34
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Her voice was as dead as the summer before last. (Nevada Gas)
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Raymond Chandler |
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b4f9045
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They went along a balcony that looked down over the dining room and the dance floor. The lisp of hot jazz came up to them from the lithe, swaying bodies of a high-yaller band. With the lisp of jazz came the smell of food and cigarette smoke and perspiration. The balcony was high and the scene down below had a patterned look, like an overhead camera shot. (Nevada Gas)
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hard-boiled
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Raymond Chandler |
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0f7fea7
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They are what human beings turn into when they trade life for existence and ambition for security.
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Raymond Chandler |
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70993e7
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Police business," he said almost gently, "is a hell of a problem. It's a good deal like politics. It asks for the highest type of men, and there's nothing in it to attract the highest type of men. So we have to work with what we get--and we get things like this."
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Raymond Chandler |
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ccc801a
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The minutes went by on tiptoe, with their fingers to their lips.
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Raymond Chandler |
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31205c4
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Do you like orchids?' 'Not particularly,' I said. The General half closed his eyes. 'They are nasty things. Their flesh is too much like the flesh of men. And their perfume has the rotten sweetness of a prostitute.' I
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Raymond Chandler |
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bd28266
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Anybody home, son?" "You ought to know." "How would I know?" "Go -- yourself." "That's how people get false teeth." He showed me his in a tight grin."
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Raymond Chandler |
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80e3fed
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he breathed like an old Ford with a leaky head gasket.
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Raymond Chandler |
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6646834
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the daily papers were beginning to scream about how terrible it would be if you didn't get your Christmas shopping done early. It would be terrible anyway; it always is. It
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Raymond Chandler |
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c139157
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The little one-story house was as neat as a fresh pinafore. The front lawn was cut lovingly and very green. The smooth composition driveway was free of grease spots from standing cars, and the hedge that bordered it looked as though the barber came every day. The white door had a knocker with a tiger's head, a go-to-hell window and a dingus that let someone inside talk to someone outside without even opening the little window. I'd have give..
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Raymond Chandler |
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f7f5ffb
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She was quite a doll. She wore a white belted raincoat, no hat, a well-cherished head of platinum hair, booties to match the raincoat, a folding plastic umbrella, a pair of blue-gray eyes that looked at me as if I had said a dirty word. I helped her off with her raincoat. She smelled very nice. She had a pair of legs - so far as I could determine - that were not painful to look at. She wore night sheer stockings. I stared at them rather int..
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hard-boiled
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Raymond Chandler |
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bba30dd
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I opened the other envelope. It contained a photograph of a girl. The pose suggested a natural ease, or a lot of experience in being photographed. It showed darkish hair which might possibly have been red, a wide clear forehead, serious eyes, high cheekbones, nervous nostrils and a mouth which was not giving anything away. It was a fine-drawn, almost a taut face, and not a happy one
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hard-boiled
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Raymond Chandler |
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3b35df1
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Another longish pause. His eyelids were getting heavy. "Ever kill a man, Marlowe?" "Yes." "Nasty feeling, isn't it?" "Some people like it." His eyes went shut all the way. Then they opened again, but they looked vague. "How could they?"
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Raymond Chandler |
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8ae7126
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The coffee shop smell was strong enough to build a garage on. I went back to my desk, dropped the bottle of whiskey back into the drawer, shut the drawer and sat down again.
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Raymond Chandler |
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fd51870
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She had that fine-drawn intense look that is sometimes neurotic, sometimes sex-hungry, and sometimes just the result of drastic dieting. I
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Raymond Chandler |
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2eb2ea7
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I got down there about nine, under a hard high October moon that lost itself in the top layers of a beach fog.
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Raymond Chandler |
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7324563
|
I looked at her again. She lay still now, her face pale against the pillow, her eyes large and dark and empty as rain barrels in a drought. One of her small five-fingered thumbless hands picked at the cover restlessly. There was a vague glimmer of doubt starting to get born in her somewhere. She didn't know about it yet. It's so hard for women - even nice women - to realise that their bodies are not irresistible.
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Raymond Chandler |
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b8c52f2
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No trial, no sensational headlines, no mud-slinging just to sell newspapers without the slightest regard for truth or fair play or for the feelings of innocent people.
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Raymond Chandler |
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ce7aed7
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She thought. It was nice to watch her thinking. She still had her legs crossed, and still carelessly.
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Raymond Chandler |
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94b325a
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I drove on through the piled masses of granite and down through the meadows of coarse grass where cows grazed. The same gaudy slacks and short shorts and peasant handkerchiefs as yesterday, the same light breeze and golden sun and clear blue sky, the same smell of pine needles, the same cool softness of a mountain summer. But yesterday was a hundred years ago, something crystallized in time, like a fly in amber
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Raymond Chandler |
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b3d63a8
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Under the thinning fog the surf curled and creamed, almost without sound, like a thought trying to form itself on the edge of consciousness.
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Raymond Chandler |