Neither of the two people in the room paid any attention to the way I came in, although only one of them was dead.

If my books had been any worse, I should not have been invited to Hollywood, and if they had been any better, I should not have come.

James Cain - faugh! Everything he touches smells like a billygoat. He is every kind of writer I detest, a faux naix, a Proust in greasy overalls, a dirty little boy with a piece of chalk and a board fence and nobody looking. Such people are the offal of literature, not because they write about dirty things, but because they do it in a dirty way.

I guess God made Boston on a wet Sunday.

I don't mind your showing me your legs. They're very swell legs and it's a pleasure to make their acquaintance. I don't mind if you don't like my manners. They're pretty bad. I grieve over them during the long winter evenings. But don't waste your time trying to cross-examine me.

I think a man ought to get drunk at least twice a year just on principle, so he won't let himself get snotty about it.

Dames lie about anything - just for practice.