Farewell, My Lovely Quotes

“I needed a drink, I needed a lot of life insurance, I needed a vacation, I needed a home in the country. What I had was a coat, a hat and a gun. I put them on and went out of the room.”
― Raymond Chandler, Farewell, My Lovely

“It was a blonde. A blonde to make a bishop kick a hole in a stained-glass window.”
― Raymond Chandler, Farewell, My Lovely

“She gave me a smile I could feel in my hip pocket.”
― Raymond Chandler, Farewell, My Lovely

“I like smooth shiny girls, hardboiled and loaded with sin.”
― Raymond Chandler, Farewell, My Lovely

“The wet air was as cold as the ashes of love.”
― Raymond Chandler, Farewell, My Lovely

“The coffee shop smell was strong enough to build a garage on.”
― Raymond Chandler, Farewell, My Lovely

“It was a cool day and very clear. You could see a long way-but not as far as Velma had gone.”
― Raymond Chandler, Farewell, My Lovely

“Time passed again. I don't know how long. I had no watch. They don't make that kind of time in watches anyway.”
― Raymond Chandler, Farewell, My Lovely

“After a little while I felt a little better, but very little. I needed a drink, I needed a lot of life insurance, I needed a vacation, I needed a home in the country. What I had was a coat, a hat and a gun. I put them on and went out of the room.”
― Raymond Chandler, Farewell, My Lovely

“I needed a drink, I needed a lot of life insurance, I needed a vacation, I needed a home in the country. What I had was a coat, a hat and a gun.”
― Raymond Chandler, Farewell, My Lovely

“You can crab over the morning paper and kick the shins of the guy in the next seat at the movies and feel mean and discouraged and sneer at the politicians but there are a lot of nice people in the world just the same.”
― Raymond Chandler, Farewell, My Lovely

“Even on Central Avenue, not the quietest dressed street in the world, he looked about as inconspicuous as a tarantula on a slice of angel food.”
― Raymond Chandler, Farewell, My Lovely

“It's a swell theory," I said. "Marriott socked me, took the money, then he got sorry and beat his brains out, after first burying the money under a bush.”
― Raymond Chandler, Farewell, My Lovely

“She sighed. “All men are the same.” “So are all women—after the first nine.”
― Raymond Chandler, Farewell, My Lovely

“I think you are a very stupid person. You look stupid. You are in a stupid business. And you came here on a stupid mission.” “I get it,” I said. “I’m stupid. It sank in after a while.”
― Raymond Chandler, Farewell, My Lovely

“I got up on my feet and went over to the bowl in the corner and threw cold water on my face. After a little while I felt a little better, but very little. I needed a drink, I needed a lot of life insurance. I needed a vacation, I needed a home in the country. What I had was a coat, a hat and a gun. I put them on and went out of the room.”
― Raymond Chandler, Farewell, My Lovely

“Velma you says? No Velma heah, brother. No hooch, no gals, no nothing. Jes' the scram, white boy, jes' the scram.”
― Raymond Chandler, Farewell, My Lovely

“She’s a charming middle-aged lady with a face like a bucket of mud and if she has washed her hair since Coolidge’s second term, I’ll eat my spare tire, rim and all.”
― Raymond Chandler, Farewell, My Lovely

“Thick cunning played on her face, had no fun there and went somewhere else.”
― Raymond Chandler, Farewell, My Lovely

“They had Rembrandt on the calendar that year, a rather smeary self-portrait due to imperfectly registered color plate. It showed him holding a smeared palette with a dirty thumb and wearing a tam-o’-shanter which wasn’t any too clean either. His other hand held a brush poised in the air, as if he might be going to do a little work after a while, if somebody made a down payment. His face was aging, saggy, full of the disgust of life and the thickening effects of liquor. But it had a hard cheerfulness that I liked, and the eyes were as bright as drops of dew.
I was looking at him across my office desk at about four-thirty when the phone rang and I heard a cool, supercilious voice that sounded as if it thought it was pretty good. It said drawlingly, after I had answered:
“You are Philip Marlowe, a private detective?”
― Raymond Chandler, Farewell, My Lovely

“All she did was take her hand out of her bag, with a gun in it. All she did was point it at me and smile. All I did was nothing.”
― Raymond Chandler, Farewell, My Lovely

“The house itself was not so much. It was smaller than Buckingham Palace, rather gray for California, and probably had fewer windows than the Chrysler Building.”
― Raymond Chandler, Farewell, My Lovely

“It was a nice face, a face you get to like. Pretty, but not so pretty that you would have to wear brass knuckles every time you took it out.”
― Raymond Chandler, Farewell, My Lovely

“The trouble with cops is not that they're dumb or crooked or tough, but that they think just being a cop gives them a little something that they didn't have before. Maybe it did once, but not anymore. They're topped by too many smart minds.”
― Raymond Chandler, Farewell, My Lovely

“She was a cute as a washtub.”
― Raymond Chandler, Farewell, My Lovely

“Suddenly, without any real change in her, she ceased to be beautiful. She looked merely like a woman who would have been dangerous a hundred years ago, and twenty years ago daring, but who today was just Grade B Hollywood.”
― Raymond Chandler, Farewell, My Lovely

“Beyond the electroliers, beyond the beat and toot of the small sidewalk cars, beyond the smell of hot fat and popcorn and the shrill children and the barkers in the peep shows, beyond everything but the smell of the ocean and the suddenly clear line of the shore and the creaming fall of the waves into the pebbled spume. I walked almost alone now. The noises died behind me, the hot dishonest light became a fumbling glare. Then the lightless finger of a black pier jutted seaward into the dark. This would be the one. I turned to go out on it. Red”
― Raymond Chandler, Farewell, My Lovely

“It was a blonde. A blonde to make a bishop kick a hole in a stained glass window. She was wearing street clothes that looked black and white, and a hat to match and she was a little haughty, but not too much. Whatever you needed, wherever you happened to be—she had it.”
― Raymond Chandler, Farewell, My Lovely

“Kind of smart guesser, ain’t you, young man? Can’t wait for folks to get their mouth open hardly.” “I’m sorry, Mrs. Morrison. This is an important matter to us—” “This here young man don’t seem to have no trouble keepin’ his mouth in place.” “He’s married,” I said. “He’s had practice.”
― Raymond Chandler, Farewell, My Lovely

“She’s a nice girl. Not my type.” “You don’t like them nice?” He had another cigarette going. The smoke was being fanned away from his face by his hand. “I like smooth shiny girls, hardboiled and loaded with sin.” “They take you to the cleaners,” Randall said indifferently.”
― Raymond Chandler, Farewell, My Lovely