"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 (The Big Sleep)

"I love that name. A country named Chad. Sounds like somebody who lived next door to the Brady Bunch. But if Chad actually lived next door to the Bradys, Greg would be roasting over a slow fire and Marcia would be standing naked on an auction block, because Chad is one of the hungriest, craziest, most desperate places on the planet."
— Gary Brecher (The War Nerd)

"She waited for the train to pass. Then she said, ‘I sometimes think that people’s hearts are like deep wells. Nobody knows what’s at the bottom. All you can do is imagine by what comes floating to the surface every once in a while.’"
— Haruki Murakami (Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman)

"She was good at playing abstract confusion in the same way that a midget is good at being short."
— Clive James, on Marilyn Monroe