Dashiell Hammett
Dashiell Hammett
Samuel Dashiell Hammettwas an American author of hard-boiled detective novels and short stories, screenwriter, and political activist. Among the enduring characters he created are Sam Spade, Nick and Nora Charles, and the Continental Op...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth27 May 1894
CitySt Marys County, MD
CountryUnited States of America
love-you want spares
I deserve all the love you can spare me. And I want a lot more than I deserve.
discovery steps affair
...What disturbed him was the discovery that in sensibly ordering his affairs he had got out of step, and not into step, with Life.
sides looks bright-side
You got to look on the bright side, even if there ain't one.
girl drunk want
You're drunk, and I'm drunk, and I'm just exactly drunk enough to tell you anything you want to know. That's the kind of girl I am. If I like a person, I'll tell them anything they want to know. Just ask me. Go ahead, ask me.
work-out things-will-work-out plans
I haven't any sort of plans for the future but I reckon things will work out in some manner.
mind trouble film-noir
I don t mind a reasonable amount of trouble.
cairo want smooth
Joel Cairo: You always have a very smooth explanation ready. Sam Spade: What do you want me to do, learn to stutter?
style ends found
I found I was repeating myself. It is the beginning of the end when you discover you have style.
yarn people trying
A lot of fancier yarns come from people trying to tell the truth. It’s not easy once you’re out of the habit.
wicked brunette type
She grinned at me. 'You got types?' 'Only you darling - lanky brunettes with wicked jaws.
inspirational men people
To get what he wanted, a man had to give other people what they wanted.
good-life innocent spades
Brigid O'Shaughnessy: “I haven't lived a good life. I've been bad, worse than you could know.” Sam Spade “You know, that's good, because if you actually were as innocent as you pretend to be, we'd never get anywhere
thinking literature influence
I've been as bad an influence on American literature as anyone I can think of.
writing play interesting
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.