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

He looked rather pleasantly, like a blonde satan.

He felt like somebody had taken the lid off life and let him see the works.

I've been as bad an influence on American literature as anyone I can think of.

It's awfully easy to be in love in jail

I once knew a man who stole a Ferris Wheel.

What I try to do is write a story about a detective rather than a detective story. Keeping the reader fooled until the last, possible moment is a good trick and I usually try to play it, but I can't attach more than secondary importance to it. The puzzle isn't so interesting to me as the behavior of the detective attacking it.