Red Harvest Quotes

“Who shot him? I asked.
The grey man scratched the back of his neck and said: Somebody with a gun.”
― Dashiell Hammett, Red Harvest

“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

“I haven't laughed so much over anything since the hogs ate my kid brother.”
― Dashiell Hammett, Red Harvest

“Play with murder enough and it gets you one of two ways. It makes you sick, or you get to like it.”
― Dashiell Hammett, Red Harvest

“I first heard Personville called Poisonville by a red-haired mucker named Hickey Dewey in the Big Ship in Butte. He also called his shirt a shoit. I didn't think anything of what he had done to the city's name. Later I heard men who could manage their r's give it the same pronunciation. I still didn't see anything in it but the meaningless sort of humor that used to make richardsnary the thieves' word for dictionary. A few years later I went to Personville and learned better.”
― Dashiell Hammett, Red Harvest

“To get what he wanted, a man had to give other people what they wanted.”
― Dashiell Hammett, Red Harvest

“This damned burg's getting me. If I don't get away soon I'll be going blood-simple like the natives.”
― Dashiell Hammett, Red Harvest

“So that's the way you scientific detectives work. My god! for a fat, middle-aged, hard-boiled, pig-headed guy, you've got the vaguest way of doing things I ever heard of.”
― Dashiell Hammett, Red Harvest

“He's cute," I said.
"Uh-huh," the grey man agreed, "and so's dynamite.”
― Dashiell Hammett, Red Harvest

“Be still while I get up or I'll make an opening in your head for brains to leak in.”
― Dashiell Hammett, Red Harvest

“I first heard Personville called Poisonville by a red-haired mucker named Hickey Dewey in the Big Ship in Butte. He also called his shirt a shoit.”
― Dashiell Hammett, Red Harvest

“Elihu Willsson opened the meeting. He said things couldn’t go on the way they were going. We were all sensible men, reasonable men, grown men who had seen enough of the world to know that a man couldn’t have everything his own way, no matter who he was. Compromises were things everybody had to make sometimes. To get what he wanted, a man had to give other people what they wanted. He said he was sure that what we all most wanted now was to stop this insane killing. He said he was sure that everything could be frankly discussed and settled in an hour without turning Personville into a slaughterhouse.”
― Dashiell Hammett, Red Harvest

“He's the guy that the joke was wrote about: 'Is he a criminal lawyer?' 'Yes, very.”
― Dashiell Hammett, Red Harvest

“I was two pavements from my destination when somebodey S-s-s-s-s'd at me.
I probably didn't jump twenty feet.”
― Dashiell Hammett, Red Harvest

“Now I'm going to have my fun. I've got ten thousand dollars of your money to play with. I'm going to use it opening Poisonville up from Adam's apple to ankles.”
― Dashiell Hammett, Red Harvest

“Plans are all right sometimes," I said. "And sometimes just stirring things up is all right--if you're tough enough to survive, and keep your eyes open so you'll see what you want when it comes to the top.”
― Dashiell Hammett, Red Harvest

“I don’t get away soon I’ll be going blood-simple like the natives.”
― Dashiell Hammett, Red Harvest

“It was a good trick, only it didn't work. In”
― Dashiell Hammett, Red Harvest

“A bullet kissed a hole in the door-frame close to my noodle.”
― Dashiell Hammett, Red Harvest

“He said things couldn’t go on the way they were going. We were all sensible men, reasonable men, grown men who had seen enough of the world to know that a man couldn’t have everything his own way, no matter who he was. Compromises were things everybody had to make sometimes. To get what he wanted, a man had to give other people what they wanted. He said he was sure that what we all most wanted now was to stop this insane killing.”
― Dashiell Hammett, Red Harvest

“I looked most honest when I was lying.”
― Dashiell Hammett, Red Harvest

“I suppose you'll see her. You'll be disappointed at first. Then without being able to say how or when it happened, you'll find you've forgotten your disappointment, and the first thing you know you'll be telling her your life's history, and all your troubles and hopes.”
― Dashiell Hammett, Red Harvest

“Your playmates sent him?” I asked, nodding at the dead man. “I only talked to him with this,” he said, patting the automatic on the bed, “but I reckon they did.” “How did it happen?” “It happened simple enough. I heard the door opening, and I switched on the light, and there he was, and I shot him, and there he is.”
― Dashiell Hammett, Red Harvest

“She jealous?” I asked before he could go on with his shouting. “And if you don’t yell maybe I’ll be able to hear you anyway. My deafness is a lot better since I’ve been eating yeast.”
― Dashiell Hammett, Red Harvest

“The chief winked at me, an athletic wink in which all his facial muscles took part....”
― Dashiell Hammett , Red Harvest

“you'll have your city back, all nice and clean and ready to go to the dogs again”
― Dashiell Hammett, Red Harvest

“Was she jealous?” “She was,” he said, not yelling now, “and domineering, and spoiled, and suspicious, and greedy, and mean, and unscrupulous, and deceitful, and selfish, and damned bad—altogether damned bad!”
― Dashiell Hammett, Red Harvest