They write them long because they can't write them short. Raymond Chandler More Quotes by Raymond Chandler More Quotes From Raymond Chandler Without magic, there is no art. Without art, there is no idealism. Without idealism, there is no integrity. Without integrity, there is nothing but production. Raymond Chandler magicintegrityart It's fairly obvious that American education is a cultural flop. Americans are not a well-educated people culturally, and their vocational education often has to be learned all over again after they leave school and college. On the other hand, they have open quick minds and if their education has little sharp positive value, it has not the stultifying effects of a more rigid training. Raymond Chandler collegeeducationschool You can have a hangover from other things than alcohol. I had one from women. Raymond Chandler big-sleephangoveralcohol The making of a picture ought surely to be a rather fascinating adventure. It is not; it is an endless contention of tawdry egos, some of them powerful, almost all of them vociferous, and almost none of them capable of anything much more creative than credit-stealing and self-promotion. Raymond Chandler powerfulselfadventure There is something about the literary life that repels me, all this desperate building of castles on cobwebs, the long-drawn acrimonious struggle to make something important which we all know will be gone forever in a few years, the miasma of failure which is to me almost as offensive as the cheap gaudiness of popular success. Raymond Chandler strugglewritingart I was as hollow and empty as the spaces between stars. Raymond Chandler numbnessspacestars The dilemma of the critic has always been that if he knows enough to speak with authority, he knows too much to speak with detachment. Raymond Chandler detachmenttoo-muchspeak And the commercials would have sickened a goat raised on barbed wire and broken beer bottles. Raymond Chandler wirebrokenbeer The impulse to perfection cannot exist where the definition of perfection is the arbitrary decision of authority. That which is born in loneliness and from the heart cannot be defended against the judgment of a committee of sycophants. The volatile essences which make literature cannot survive the clichés of a long series of story conferences. Raymond Chandler lonelinessessenceheart In everything that can be called art there is a quality of redemption. Raymond Chandler redemptionqualityart Most critical writing is drivel and half of it is dishonest. It is a short cut to oblivion, anyway. Thinking in terms of ideas destroys the power to think in terms of emotions and sensations. Raymond Chandler cuttingwritingthinking Love interest nearly always weakens a mystery because it introduces a type of suspense that is antagonistic to the detective's struggle to solve a problem. Raymond Chandler suspensestrugglewriting The motion picture made in Hollywood, if it is to create art at all, must do so within such strangling limitations of subject and treatment that it is a blind wonder it ever achieves any distinction beyond the purely mechanical slickness of a glass and chromium bathroom. Raymond Chandler hollywoodglassesart She jerked away from me like a startled fawn might, if I had a startled fawn and it jerked away from me. Raymond Chandler fawnsifsmight At least half the mystery novels published violate the law that the solution, once revealed, must seem to be inevitable. Raymond Chandler readingwritingbook Dames lie about anything - just for practice. Raymond Chandler damespracticelying If you don't leave, I'll get somebody who will. Raymond Chandler ifs I looked down at the chessboard. The move with the knight was wrong. I put it back where I had moved it from. Knights had no meaning in this game. It wasn't a game for knights. Raymond Chandler knightsgamesmoving She smelled the way the Taj Mahal looks by moonlight. Raymond Chandler taj-mahallooksway [As a screenwriter] I have a sense of exile from thought, a nostalgia of the quiet room and balanced mind. I am a writer, and there comes a time when that which I write has to belong to me, has to be written alone and in silence, with no one looking over my shoulder, no one telling me a better way to write it. It doesn't have to be great writing, it doesn't even have to be terribly good. It just has to be mine. Raymond Chandler silencemindwriting
