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

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

My way of learning is to heave a wild and unpredictable monkey-wrench into the machinery.

She grinned at me. 'You got types?' 'Only you darling - lanky brunettes with wicked jaws.

I first heard Personville called Poisonville by a red-haired mucker named Hickey Dewey in the Big Ship in Butte. He also called his shirt a shoit.

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.

I like women. I really like women.