Dashiell Hammett Quotes

47 Sourced Quotes

Listen, darling, tomorrow I'll buy you a whole lot of detective stories, but don't worry your pretty little head over mysteries tonight.

Dashiell Hammett
Who shot him? I asked. The grey man scratched the back of his neck and said: Somebody with a gun.

Dashiell Hammett
"Stop, you idiot!" I bawled at her. Her face laughed over her shoulder at me. She walked without haste to the door, her short skirt of gray flannel shaping itself to the calf of each gray wool-stockinged leg as its mate stepped forward. Sweat greased the gun in my hand. When her right foot was on the doorsill, a little chuckling sound came from her throat. "Adieu!" she said softly.
And I put a bullet in the calf of her leg. She sat down—plump! Utter surprise stretched her white face. It was too soon for pain. I had never shot a woman before. I felt queer about it.
"You ought to have known I'd do it!" My voice sounded harsh and savage and like a stranger's in my ears. "Didn't I steal a crutch from a cripple?"

Dashiell Hammett
He felt like somebody had taken the lid off life and let him look at the works.

Dashiell Hammett
"You're a damn good man, sister," he said and went out.

Dashiell Hammett
Spade's thick fingers made a cigarette with deliberate care, sifting a measured quantity of tan flakes down into curved paper, spreading the flakes so that they lay equal at the ends with a slight depression in the middle, thumbs rolling the paper's inner edge down and up under the outer edge as forefingers pressed it over, thumbs and fingers sliding to the paper cylinder's ends to hold it even while tongue licked the flap, left forefinger and thumb pinching their ends while right forefinger and thumb smoothed the damp seam, right forefinger and thumb twisting their end and lifting the other to Spade's mouth.

Dashiell Hammett
I haven't any sort of plans for the future but I reckon things will work out in some manner.

Dashiell Hammett
Did it ever occur to you that everybody is more or less afraid of nearly everything, and that courage isn't a damn thing but a habit of not dodging things because you're afraid of them?

Dashiell Hammett
If you have a story that seems worth telling, and you think you can tell it worthily, then the thing for you to do is to tell it, regardless of whether it has to do with sex, sailors or mounted policemen.

Dashiell Hammett
Samuel Spade's jaw was long and bony, his chin a jutting v under the more flexible v of his mouth. His nostrils curved back to make another, smaller v. His yellow-grey eyes were horizontal. The v motif was picked up again by thickish brows rising outward from twin creases above a hooked nose, and his pale brown hair grew down-from high flat temples-in a point on his forehead. He looked rather pleasantly like a blonde Satan.

Dashiell Hammett
"You got types?"
"Only you, darling-lanky brunettes with wicked jaws."

Dashiell Hammett
If a man says a thing often enough, he is very likely to acquire some sort of faith in it sooner or later.

Dashiell Hammett
What disturbed him was the discovery that in sensibly ordering his affairs he had got out of step, and not into step, with Life.

Dashiell Hammett
"We begin well, sir," the fat man purred … "I distrust a man that says when. If he's got to be careful not to drink too much it's because he's not to be trusted when he does. … Well, sir, here's to plain speaking and clear understanding. … You're a close-mouthed man?"
Spade shook his head. "I like to talk."
"Better and better!" the fat man exclaimed. "I distrust a close-mouthed man. He generally picks the wrong time to talk and says the wrong things. Talking's something you can't do judiciously unless you keep in practice."

Dashiell Hammett
"I've thrown myself on your mercy, told you that without your help I'm utterly lost. What else is there?" She suddenly moved close to him on the settee and cried angrily: "Can I buy you with my body?"

Dashiell Hammett
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.

Dashiell Hammett
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.

Dashiell Hammett
It's sometimes better to pretend I don't hear the sound of somebody in the nearby woods with a shotgun.

Dashiell Hammett
The cheaper the crook, the gaudier the patter.

Dashiell Hammett
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

Dashiell Hammett
She was tall and pleasantly slender, without angularity anywhere. Her body was erect and high-breasted, her legs long, her hands and feet narrow. She wore two shades of blue that had been selected because of her eyes. The hair curling from under her blue hat was darkly red, her full lips more brightly red. White teeth glistened in the crescent her timid smile made.

Dashiell Hammett
She keeps trying and you've got to be careful or you'll find yourself believing her, not because she seems to be telling the truth, but simply because you're tired of disbelieving her.

Dashiell Hammett
The outcome of successful planning always looks like luck to saps.

Dashiell Hammett
Three times I have been mistaken for a prohibition agent, but never had any trouble clearing myself.

Dashiell Hammett
It is the beginning of the end when you discover you have style.

Dashiell Hammett
That's why I don't very often drink, or even smoke. I want to try cocaine, though because that's suppose to sharpen the brain, isn't it?

Dashiell Hammett
Nora said: 'I love you, Nicky, because you smell nice and know such fascinating people.'

Dashiell Hammett
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.

Dashiell Hammett
All successful bunko men come in time to believe the world, except for themselves, is populated with a race of human sheep who may be trusted to conduct themselves with true sheeplike docility.

Dashiell Hammett
To get what he wanted, a man had to give other people what they wanted.

Dashiell Hammett