"The problem with putting two and two together is that sometimes you get four, and sometimes you get twenty-two."
— Dashiell Hammett (The Thin Man)

"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."
— Dashiell Hammett (Red Harvest)

"We didn't exactly believe your story, Miss O'Shaughnessy, we believed your 200 dollars. I mean you paid us more than if you had been telling us the truth, and enough more to make it alright. (Sam Spade)"
— Dashiell Hammett (The Maltese Falcon)

"He looked rather pleasantly, like a blonde satan."
— Dashiell Hammett (The Maltese Falcon)

"...What disturbed him was the discovery that in sensibly ordering his affairs he had got out of step, and not into step, with Life."
— Dashiell Hammett

"She grinned at me. 'You got types?'
'Only you darling - lanky brunettes with wicked jaws.'"
— Dashiell Hammett (The Thin Man)

""I don t mind a reasonable amount of trouble.""
— Dashiell Hammett

"I hope they don't hang you, precious, by that sweet neck. Yes, angel, I'm gonna send you over. The chances are you'll get off with life. That means if you're a good girl, you'll be out in 20 years. I'll be waiting for you. If they hang you, I'll always remember you. (Sam Spade to Brigid O'Shaughnessy)"
— Dashiell Hammett

"I couldn't be fonder of you if you were my own son. But, well, if you lose a son, its possible to get another. There's only one Maltese Falcon. (Kasper Gutman)"
— Dashiell Hammett (The Maltese Falcon)

"If you have a story that seems worth telling, and you think you can tell it worthily, then the thing for you to do is to tell it, regardless of whether it has to do with sex, sailors or mounted policemen."
— Dashiell Hammett

"When he awakened again he could stand, and did. He doused his head in cold water and drank four glasses of water. The water made him sick and after that he began to shake with a chill. He went into the bedroom and lay down on the bare blood-stained mattress, but got up almost immediately to go stumbling and staggering in haste back to the bathroom, where he got down on hands and knees and searched the floor until he had found the rusty razor-blade. He sat on the floor and put the razor-blade into his vest-pocket. Putting it in, his fingers touched his lighter. He took the lighter out and looked at it. A cunning gleam came into his one open eye as he looked at the lighter. The gleam was not sane."
— Dashiell Hammett (The Glass Key)

"'It's tough, him getting it like that. Miles had his faults same as the rest of us, but I guess he must've had some good points too.'"
— Dashiell Hammett

"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"
— Dashiell Hammett (The Maltese Falcon)

"Nora said: 'I love you, Nicky, because you smell nice and know such fascinating people.'"
— Dashiell Hammett (The Thin Man)

""I haven't laughed so much over anything since the hogs ate my kid brother.""
— Dashiell Hammett

"'We didn't exactly believe your story.'
'Then--?'
'We believed your two hundred dollars.'
'You mean--' She seemed not to know what he meant.
'I mean that you paid us more than if you'd been telling the truth,' he explained blandly, 'and enough more to make it all right.'"
— Dashiell Hammett