“The wet air was as cold as the ashes of love.”
Источник: Farewell, My Lovely
“The wet air was as cold as the ashes of love.”
Источник: Farewell, My Lovely
“Knights had no meaning in this game. It wasn't a game for knights.”
Источник: The Big Sleep (1939), Chapter 28
Контексте: 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.
“Some days I feel like playing it smooth. Some days I feel like playing it like a waffle iron.”
Источник: Trouble Is My Business
Источник: The Big Sleep (1939), Chapter 28, Phillip Marlowe watching Mona "Silver-Wig" Mars
“I belonged in Idle Valley like a pearl onion on a banana split.”
Источник: The Long Goodbye
“It was a cool day and very clear. You could see a long way-but not as far as Velma had gone.”
Источник: Farewell, My Lovely
“Shake your business up and pour it. I don't have all day.”
Источник: The Big Sleep
“I'm killing time and it's dying hard.”
Вариант: Mostly I just kill time," he said, "and it dies hard.
Источник: The Long Goodbye
“When I split an infinitive, God damn it, I split it so it will stay split.”
In a letter to the editor of the Atlantic Monthly.
Контексте: By the way, would you convey my compliments to the purist who reads your proofs and tell him or her that I write in a sort of broken-down patois which is something like the way a Swiss-waiter talks, and that when I split an infinitive, God damn it, I split it so it will remain split, and when I interrupt the velvety smoothness of my more or less literate syntax with a few sudden words of barroom vernacular, this is done with the eyes wide open and the mind relaxed and attentive. The method may not be perfect, but it is all I have.
“The coffee shop smell was strong enough to build a garage on.”
Источник: Farewell, My Lovely
Источник: The Lady in the Lake (1943), chapter 1
Контексте: The little blonde at the PBX cocked a shell-like ear and smiled a small fluffy smile. She looked playful and eager, but not quite sure of herself, like a new kitten in a house where they don't care much about kittens.
essay, first appeared in The Atlantic Monthly (November, 1945)
The Simple Art of Murder (1950)