I'm Killing Time And It's Dying Hard.

The Character That Lasts Is An Ordinary Guy With Some Extraordinary Qualities.

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.

If People Could Deal With Each Other Honestly, They Would Not Need Agents.

[as A Screenwriter] I Have A Sense Of Exile From Thought, A Nostalgia Of The Quiet Room And Balanced Mind. I Am A Writer, And There Comes A Time When That Which I Write Has To Belong To Me, Has To Be Written Alone And In Silence, With No One Looking Over My Shoulder, No One Telling Me A Better Way To Write It. It Doesn't Have To Be Great Writing, It Doesn't Even Have To Be Terribly Good. It Just Has To Be Mine.

Dashiell Hammett Took Murder Out Of Thevenetian Vase And Dropped It Into The Alley.