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

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

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

You don't pay a prostitute for sex, you pay her to leave afterwards.

I like women. I really like women.

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

Nora: "How do you feel?" Nick: "Terrible. I must've gone to bed sober.