A lot of fancier yarns come from people trying to tell the truth. It's not easy once you're out of the habit.
--Dashiell Hammett
All successful bunko men come in time to believe the world, except for themselves, is populated with a race of human sheep who may be trusted to conduct themselves with true sheeplike docility.
--Dashiell Hammett
But where knowledge of trickery is evenly distributed, honesty not infrequently prevails.
--Dashiell Hammett
Did it ever occur to you that everybody is more or less afraid of nearly everything, and that courage isn't a damn thing but a habit of not dodging things because you're afraid of them?
--Dashiell Hammett
Emotions are useless during business hours.
--Dashiell Hammett
Feed the lettuce to the bunny and eat the bunny.
--Dashiell Hammett
I don't like eloquence. If it isn't effective enough to pierce your hide, it's tiresome, and if it is effective enough, it muddles your thoughts.
--Dashiell Hammett
I don't mind a reasonable amount of trouble.
--Dashiell Hammett
I have not killed anyone. They will not let me.
--Dashiell Hammett
I haven't any sort of plans for the future but I reckon things will work out in some manner.
--Dashiell Hammett
I once knew a man who stole a Ferris Wheel...
--Dashiell Hammett
If a man says a thing often enough, he is very likely to acquire some sort of faith in it sooner or later.
--Dashiell Hammett
If you have a story that seems worth telling, and you think you can tell it worthily, then the thing for you to do is to tell it, regardless of whether it has to do with sex, sailors or mounted policemen.
--Dashiell Hammett
It is the beginning of the end when you discover you have style.
--Dashiell Hammett
It's awfully easy to be in love in jail.
--Dashiell Hammett
It's sometimes better to pretend I don't hear the sound of somebody in the nearby woods with a shotgun.
--Dashiell Hammett
My way of learning is to heave a wild and unpredictable monkey-wrench into the machinery.
--Dashiell Hammett
People always say things like, Oh, well, he was suffering so much that he was better off dying. But that's not true. You're always better off living.
--Dashiell Hammett
She keeps trying and you've got to be careful or you'll find yourself believing her, not because she seems to be telling the truth, but simply because you're tired of disbelieving her.
--Dashiell Hammett
Strictly speaking, there are no real substitutes for sexual satisfaction.
--Dashiell Hammett
The cheaper the crook, the gaudier the patter.
--Dashiell Hammett
The people who lie the most are nearly always the clumsiest at it, and they're easier to fool with lies than most people, too. You'd think they'd be on the look-out for lies, but they seem to be the very ones that will believe almost anything at all.
--Dashiell Hammett
The problem with putting two and two together is that sometimes you get four, and sometimes you get twenty-two.
--Dashiell Hammett
What disturbed him was the discovery that in sensibly ordering his affairs he had got out of step, and not into step, with Life.
--Dashiell Hammett
You got to look on the bright side, even if there ain't one.
--Dashiell Hammett
Found 25 occurence(s) in 52,543 quotation(s).