Quote #27
Nor is it any part of my thesis to maintain that it [the detective story] is a vital and significant form of art. There are no vital and significant forms of art; there is only art, and precious little of that.
More from Raymond Chandler
- There are no 'classics' of crime and detection. Not one. Within its frame of reference, which is the only way it should be judged, a classi…
- Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid. The detective must be a complete man an…
- The mystery story is a kind of writing that need not dwell in the shadow of the past and owes little if any allegiance to the cult of the c…
- She opened her mouth like a firebucket and laughed. That terminated my interest in her. I couldn't hear the laugh but the hole in her face …
- Undoubtedly the stories about them [hard-boiled detectives] had a fantastic element. Such things happened, but not so rapidly, nor to so cl…
- When I got home I mixed a stiff one and stood by the open window in the living room and sipped it and listened to the groundswell of traffi…
- I hung up. It was a step in the right direction, but it didn't go far enough. I ought to have locked the door and hid under the desk.
- You can always tell a detective on TV. He never takes his hat off.