Quotes from The Big Sleep

“Dead men are heavier than broken hearts.”
― Raymond Chandler, quote from The Big Sleep

“It seemed like a nice neighborhood to have bad habits in.”
― Raymond Chandler, quote from The Big Sleep

“I don't mind your showing me your legs. They're very swell legs and it's a pleasure to make their acquaintace. I don't mind if you don't like my manners. They're pretty bad. I grieve over them during the long winter nights.”
― Raymond Chandler, quote from The Big Sleep

“As honest as you can expect a man to be in a world where its going out of style.”
― Raymond Chandler, quote from The Big Sleep

“You're broke, eh?"
I been shaking two nickels together for a month, trying to get them to mate.”
― Raymond Chandler, quote from The Big Sleep

“She lowered her lashes until they almost cuddled her cheeks and slowly raised them again, like a theatre curtain. I was to get to know that trick. That was supposed to make me roll over on my back with all four paws in the air.”
― Raymond Chandler, quote from The Big Sleep

“Tall, aren't you?" she said.
"I didn't mean to be."
Her eyes rounded. She was puzzled. She was thinking. I could see, even on that short acquaintance, that thinking was always going to be a bother to her.”
― Raymond Chandler, quote from The Big Sleep

“Under the thinning fog the surf curled and creamed, almost without sound, like a thought trying to form inself on the edge of consciousness.”
― Raymond Chandler, quote from The Big Sleep

“I don’t mind if you don’t like my manners. They’re pretty bad. I grieve over them during the long winter evenings.”
― Raymond Chandler, quote from The Big Sleep

“You were dead, you were sleeping the big sleep, you were not bothered by things like that, oil and water were the same as wind and air to you. You just slept the big sleep, not caring about the nastiness of how you died or where you fell. Me, I was part of the nastiness now. Far more a part of it than Rusty Regan was.”
― Raymond Chandler, quote from The Big Sleep

“It was about eleven o'clock in the morning, mid October, with the sun not shining and a look of hard wet rain in the clearness of the foothills. I was wearing my powder-blue suit, with dark blue shirt, tie and display handkerchief, black brogues, black wool socks with dark little clocks on them. I was neat, clean, shaved and sober, and I didn't care who knew it. I was everything the well-dressed private detective ought to be. I was calling on four million dollars.”
― Raymond Chandler, quote from The Big Sleep

“You can have a hangover from other things than alcohol. I had one from women.”
― Raymond Chandler, quote from The Big Sleep

“He sounded like a man who had slept well and didn't owe too much money.”
― Raymond Chandler, quote from The Big Sleep

“What did it matter where you lay once you were dead? In a dirty sump or in a marble tower on the top of a high hill? You were dead, you were sleeping the big sleep, you were not bothered by things like that. Oil and water were the same as wind and air to you. You just slept the big sleep, not caring about the nastiness of how you died or where you fell.”
― Raymond Chandler, quote from The Big Sleep

“I looked down at the chessboard. The move with the knight was wrong. I put it back where I had moved it from. Knights had no meaning in this game. It wasn't a game for knights.”
― Raymond Chandler, quote from The Big Sleep

“Shake your business up and pour it. I don't have all day.”
― Raymond Chandler, quote from The Big Sleep

“She bent over me again. Blood began to move around in me, like a prospective tenant looking over a house.”
― Raymond Chandler, quote from The Big Sleep

“The main hallway of the Sternwood place was two stories high. Over the entrance doors, which would have let in a troop of Indian elephants, there was a broad stained-glass panel showing a knight in dark armor rescuing a lady who was tied to a tree and didn’t have any clothes on but some very long and convenient hair. The knight had pushed the vizor of his helmet back to be sociable, and he was fiddling with the knots on the ropes that tied the lady to the tree and not getting anywhere. I stood there and thought that if I lived in the house, I would sooner or later have to climb up there and help him. He didn’t seem to be really trying.”
― Raymond Chandler, quote from The Big Sleep

“I sat down on the edge of a deep soft chair and looked at Mrs Regan. She was worth a stare. She was trouble.”
― Raymond Chandler, quote from The Big Sleep

“Mr Cobb was my escort. Such a nice escort, Mr Cobb. So attentive. You should see him sober. I should see him sober. Somebody should see him sober. I mean, just for the record. So it could become a part of history, that brief flashing moment, soon buried in time, but never forgotten - when Larry Cobb was sober.”
― Raymond Chandler, quote from The Big Sleep

“Tall, aren't you?
I didn't mean to be.”
― Raymond Chandler, quote from The Big Sleep

“She was thinking. i could see, even on that short acquaintance, that thinking was always going to be a bother for her.”
― Raymond Chandler, quote from The Big Sleep

“Such a lot of guns around town and so few brains. You’re the second guy I’ve met within hours who seems to think a gat in the hand means a world by the tail.”
― Raymond Chandler, quote from The Big Sleep

“Being a copper I like to see the law win. I'd like to see the flashy well-dressed mugs like Eddie Mars spoiling their manicures in the rock quarry at Folsom, alongside of the poor little slum-bred guys that got knocked over on their first caper amd never had a break since. That's what I'd like. You and me both lived too long to think I'm likely to see it happen. Not in this town, not in any town half this size, in any part of this wide, green and beautiful U.S.A. We just don't run our country that way.”
― Raymond Chandler, quote from The Big Sleep

“It was a smooth silvery voice that matched her hair. It had a tiny tinkle in it, like bells in a doll's house. I thought that was silly as soon as I thought of it.”
― Raymond Chandler, quote from The Big Sleep

“It’s so hard for women—even nice women—to realize that their bodies are not irresistible.”
― Raymond Chandler, quote from The Big Sleep

“What did it matter where you lay once you were dead? In a dirty sump or in a marble tower on top of a high hill? You were dead, you were sleeping the big sleep, you were not bothered by things like that. Oil and water were the same as wind and air to you. You just slept the big sleep, not caring about the nastiness of how you died or where you fell. Me, I was part of the nastiness now. Far more a part of it than Rusty Regan was. But the old man didn't have to be. He could lie quiet in his canopied bed, with his bloodless hands folded on the sheet, waiting. His heart was a brief, uncertain murmur. His thoughts were as gray as ashes. And in a little while he too, like Rusty Regan, would be sleeping the big sleep.”
― Raymond Chandler, quote from The Big Sleep

“She’d make for a jazzy week-end, but she’d be wearing for a steady diet.”
― Raymond Chandler, quote from The Big Sleep

“Such a nice escort, Mr. Cobb. So attentive. You should see him sober. I should see him sober. Somebody should see him sober. I mean, just for the record. So it could become a part of history, that brief flashing moment, soon buried in time, but never forgotten—when Larry Cobb was sober.”
― Raymond Chandler, quote from The Big Sleep

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