Would you convey my compliments to the purist who reads your proofs and tell him or her that I write in a sort of broken-down patois which is something like the way a Swiss waiter talks, and that when I split an infinitive, God damn it, I split it so it will stay split.
letter to Edward Weeks, 18 January 1947, in F. MacShane Life of Raymond Chandler (1976) ch. 7
