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

Joel Cairo: You always have a very smooth explanation ready. Sam Spade: What do you want me to do, learn to stutter?

It's awfully easy to be in love in jail

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.

He looked rather pleasantly, like a blonde satan.

I like women. I really like women.

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.