Raymond Chandler Speaking Quotes

“I believe...that to be very poor and very beautiful is most probably a moral failure more than an artistic success. Shakespeare would have done well in any generation because he would have refused to die in a corner; he would have taken the false gods and made them over; he would have taken the current formulae and forced them into something lesser men thought them incapable of. Alive today he would undoubtedly have written and directed motion pictures, plays, and God knows what. Instead of saying, "This medium is not good," he would have used it and made it good. If some people called some his work cheap (which some of it was), he wouldn't have cared a rap, because he would know that without some vulgarity there is no complete man. He would have hated refinement, as such, because it is always a withdrawal, and he was too tough to shrink from anything.”
― Raymond Chandler, Raymond Chandler Speaking

“It is pretty obvious that the debasement of the human mind caused by a constant flow of fraudulent advertising is no trivial thing. There is more than one way to conquer a country.”
― Raymond Chandler, Raymond Chandler Speaking

“The private detective of fiction is a fantastic creation who acts and speaks like a real man. He can be completely realistic in every sense but one, that one sense being that in life as we know it such a man would not be a private detective."

(Letter, April 19, 1951)”
― Raymond Chandler, Raymond Chandler Speaking

“The solution, once revealed, must seem to have been inevitable. At least half of all the mystery novels published violate this law."

(Casual Notes on the Mystery Novel, 1949)”
― Raymond Chandler, Raymond Chandler Speaking