Noir Quotes

“Dead men are heavier than broken hearts.”
― Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep

“Jamie’s eyes gleamed. “God forgive me, I want there to be a murderer after the Falconer family so we in the College feel less to blame.”
― Susan Rowland, Murder on Family Grounds

“Life is a bucket of shit with a barbed wire handle.”
― Jim Thompson

“Life was better than he expected with his new Italian family inheritance, and it felt good to take a deep breath without fear of someone attacking him or his family.”
― Carolyn M. Bowen, Legacy of Shadows: An International Crime Thriller

“She’s a cop’s wife. She understands what her husband does for a living,” the priest said.”
― A.G. Russo, The Cases Nobody Wanted

“He was a guy who talked with commas, like a heavy novel. Over the phone anyway.”
― Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye

“You were dead, you were sleeping the big sleep, you were not bothered by things like that, oil and water were the same as wind and air to you. You just slept the big sleep, not caring about the nastiness of how you died or where you fell. Me, I was part of the nastiness now. Far more a part of it than Rusty Regan was.”
― Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep

“The rain fell like dead bullets.”
― Scott Nicholson

“In Greek tragedy, they fall from great heights. In noir, they fall from the curb.”
― Dennis Lehane

“I had a funny feeling as I saw the house disappear, as though I had written a poem and it was very good and I had lost it and would never remember it again.”
― Raymond Chandler, The High Window

“My friend and business partner, Gerald Peyton was 12 minutes late to the funeral. I’d reminded him it started at 2 p.m. “Yeah, yeah, Frank,” he said. “I’ll be there. Just be sure you make it.” Well, here I sat on my thumbs, and he was the no-show. He stopped at a bar and got sloshed, I thought.”
― Ed Lynskey, Death Car

“The face she made at me was probably meant for a smile. Whatever it was, it beat me. I was afraid she'd do it again, so I surrendered”
― Dashiell Hammett, The Continental Op

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

“If you leave me here," the guy on the floor said, "he'll kill me tomorrow morning."
Parker looked at him. "So you've still got tonight," he said.”
― Richard Stark, Dirty Money

“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

“Bina, thank you. Bina, listen, this guy. His name wasn't Lasker. This guy-'

She puts a hand to his mouth. She has not touched him in three years. It probably would be too much to say that he feels the darkness lift at the touch of her fingertips against his lips. But it shivers, and light bleeds in among the cracks.”
― Michael Chabon, The Yiddish Policemen's Union

“Ever since I could remember, She was all that mattered.”
― James J. Caterino, She

“I'd done it, I'd crossed the line between accepted behavior and behavior most of the population would consider a lynching offense, and that morning I felt as real as any of the men in the Escape commercials. It had been dirty and nasty but I wanted more.”
― Matthew Stokoe, High Life

“Because noir isn’t really a new thing at all. It’s just a fairy tale with guns. Your hardscrabble detective is nothing more than a noble knight with a cigarette and a disease where his heart should be. He talks prettier, that’s all. He’s no less idealistic—there’re good women and bad women, good jobs and bad jobs. Justice and truth are always worth seeking. He pulls his fedora down like the visor on a suit of armour. He serves his lord faithfully whether he wants to or not. And he is in thrall to the idea of a woman. It’s just that in detective stories, women are usually dead before the curtain goes up. In fairy tales, they’re usually alive.”
― Catherynne M. Valente, Radiance

“I ripped all her clothes off. She twisted and turned, slow, so they would slip out from under her. Then she closed her eyes and lay back on the pillow. Her hair was falling over her shoulders in snaky curls. Her eye was all black, and her breasts weren’t drawn up and pointing up at me, but soft, and spread out in two big pink splotches. She looked like the great grandmother of every whore in the world. The devil got his money’s worth that night.”
― James M. Cain, The Postman Always Rings Twice

“She was blond as hell, wearing a lot of black.”
― Kenneth Fearing, The Big Clock

“The phone rang. Softly, in actuality, yet it seemed loud and ominous, as phones do at night in dark hotel rooms.”
― Jim Thompson, The Nothing Man

“Winter was gray and mean upon the city and every night was a package of cold bleak hours, like the hours in a cell that had no door.”
― David Goodis, Of Tender Sin

“Downtown, a dress for Meg- I do it every time I kill a man.”
― James Ellroy

“He was dignity distorted, bravery become knavery, sanctimoniousness masking sin. He was a mirror, jeering at the subject it reflected. Yet so muted were the jeers, so delicate the inaccuracies of delineation, that they evaded detection. True and false were blended together. The false was merely an extended shadow of the true.”
― Jim Thompson, Swell-Looking Babe

“When the guy with asthma finally came in from the fire escape, Parker rabbit-punched him and took his gun away.”
― Richard Stark, The Mourner

“I cadged a complimentary green matchbook with a gold bird icon from the Bell canning jar. Later we'd use the matches to light our spliffs. My fingertips tapped the stem to the gizmo that dinged a bell. Nobody came out. Wrong signal, so I did two bell rings. No response prompted me to tap out a series of bell rings.”
― Ed Lynskey, Lake Charles

“You're not done with L.A. until L.A. is done with you.”
― Philip Elliott, Nobody Move

“A cat came out of an alley, took a look at all the snow, and went back in. Farther on up the street a fat man, aproned and puffing, emerged from a restaurant and whiffed the cold air and gazed yearningly at the sky. As though even the dreams were up there, much too far away.”
― David Goodis, Of Tender Sin

“A second red-orange spearhead leaps straight at O'Shaughnessy. The whole world seems to stand still. Then the gun behind it crashes, and there's a cataclysm of pain all over him, and a shock goes through him as if he ran head-on into a stone wall.

A voice from the car says blurredly, while the ground rushes up to meet him, 'Finish him up, you guys! I'm getting so I don't trust their looks no more, no matter how stiff they act!' ("Jane Brown's Body")”
― Cornell Woolrich, The Fantastic Stories of Cornell Woolrich