Good morning. Let's start off with a little film noir...

One of the most common questions any writer is asked is: what led you to this particular genre. For me, the answer begins with black-and-white movies and actors like Bogart, Mitchum, Lancaster, etc. My father was a huge film noir fan, and if he's ever been disappointed in my career choice he has only himself to blame: show an eight-year-old kid The Maltese Falcon 20 times and it's bound to have an influence. (Sadly, we watched the Marx Brothers just as much, and you can imagine what that has resulted in...)

So, in a tribute to the films that led me to this genre of fiction, I thought I'd solicit some of your favorite film noir quotes. To get the ball rolling, I asked a few of my fellow film noir fans to share some of their favorites. Here they are.

Dennis Lehane, www.dennislehanebooks.com :

"Harry thinks if you call him Harry one more time he's going to make you eat that cat."
Gene Hackman, NIGHT MOVES

Cathy: Is there a way to win at this?
Jeff: No, but there's a way to lose more slowly.
Jane Greer & Robert Mitchum, OUT OF SIGHT

Phyllis: I wonder if I know what you mean.
Walter: I wonder if you wonder.
Barbara Stanwyck & Fred McMurray, DOUBLE INDEMNITY

"Anyone checked you for a heartbeat lately?"
Lawyer (JT Walsh) to Bridget (Linda Fiorentino) THE LAST SEDUCTION

"When you commit a crime, there are a hundred ways to fuck up. If you think of fifty of `em, you're a genius. And you ain't no genius."
Mickey Rourke, BODY HEAT

Laura Lippman, www.lauralippman.com :

My favorite quote isn't from a truly noir film, but from All About Eve: "You're much too short for that gesture."

And my other favorite line doesn't appear in the film version, and the film isn't truly noir, although some might think it is. The last line of Mildred Pierce (bear in mind, I'm away from my library) is: "Let's get stinko."

Theresa Schwegel, www.theresaschwegel.com :

Phyllis: We're both rotten.
Walter Neff: Only you're a little more rotten.
Double Indemnity

Jon Jordan, www.crimespreemag.com :

"People think it's all about misery and desperation and death and all that shit which is not to be ignored, but what they forget is the pleasure of it. Otherwise we wouldn't do it. After all, we're not fucking stupid. "
Renton, Trainspotting

"I killed him for money and for a woman. I didn't get the money. And I didn't get the woman."
Double Indemnity

Cameron Hughes, www.chud.com :

"After investigating her, I found myself in better shape than ever before in my life. To me, she will always be a singular unforgettable event, the only time I ever took leave of my objectivity. Perhaps the most able blackmailer of her time, she was at once the worthiest opponent and the greatest ally, and the only woman I have ever... the only woman, period. And though I never would've anticipated it, in the end she did for me what I have done for so many: help solve a problem, first by observation, then by careful intervention - in other words, the Zero Effect."

Daryl Zero, The Zero Effect

Two of my own favorites:

"Sidney, this syrup you're giving out with...you pour over waffles, not JJ Hunsecker."

Burt Lancaster as Hunsecker, The Sweet Smell of Success

Carmen: "You're not very tall, are you?"

Marlowe: "Well, I, uh, I try to be."

Martha Vickers and Humphrey Bogart, The Big Sleep

Best 1940s-style film noir quote misplaced into another decade and medium:

From the rapper Jay-Z. I have no idea the name of the song, but I will never forget the line.

"I pack heat like I'm the oven door."

And, credit where credit is due, one of dad's favorite exchanges from The Maltese Falcon:

Gutman: Well sir, there are other means of persuasion besides killing and

              threatening to kill.

Spade: Yes, that's...that's true. But there're none of them any good

           unless the threat of death is behind them. Do you see what I mean?

           If you start something, I'll make it a matter of your having to kill me or call it off.

Gutman: That's an attitude, sir, that calls for the most delicate judgment on

              both sides. Because, as you know, sir, in the heat of action men

              are likely to forget where their best interests lie and let their

              emotions carry them away.

Spade: And the trick from my angle is to make my play strong enough to tie

           you up, but not make you mad enough to bump me off against your

           better judgment.

Gutman: By gad, sir, you are a character.

Comments

[Brian Lindenmuth]

It's not noir but it just may be the most quotable crime movie in recent memory The Way of the Gun

"I think a plan is just a list of things that don't happen."

"After all the people we've robbed and maimed and murdered, do you think it matters?"

"There's always free cheese in a mousetrap."

"You know what I'm gonna tell God when I see him? I'm gonna tell him I was framed."

"There will be a reckoning you will not live long enough to never forget."

"One's backfire; three's gunplay."

"Fifteen million dollar is not money. It's a motive with a universal adapter."

"Karma's justice without the satisfaction. I don't believe in justice."

"I'd never ask you to trust me. It's the cry of a guilty soul."

"These days, they want to be criminals more than they want to commit crime."

[Graham]

That's funny, my quote is from WAY OF THE GUN, too:

"So, you the brains of this outfit, or is he?"

"Tell ya the truth, I don't think this is a brains kind of operation."

[Michael Thomas]

Bacall (in The Big Sleep): "Speaking of horses ... I'd say you don't like to be rated ... like to get out in from ... take a little breather ... and then come home free."
Bogart: "You've got a touch of class, but I don't know how far you'll go."
Bacall: "That all depends on who's in the saddle."

Not only is it one of the best double entendres of all time, it's accurate.

[Michael Thomas]

Oops. That should have been "out in front"!

[David Terrenoire]

From Chinatown:

Jake Gittes: I just want to know what you're worth. Over ten million?

Noah Cross: Oh my, yes.

Jake Gittes: Why are you doing it? How much better can you eat? What can you buy that you can't already afford?

Noah Cross: The future, Mr. Gitts, the future.

The Maltese Falcon:

Sam Spade: When a man's partner is killed, he's supposed to do something about it. It doesn't make any difference what you thought of him. He was your partner and you're supposed to do something about it. And it happens we're in the detective business. Well, when one of your organization gets killed, it's-it's bad business to let the killer get away with it, bad all around, bad for every detective everywhere.

Wilmer Cook: Keep on riding me and they're gonna be picking iron out of your liver.

Sam Spade: The cheaper the crook, the gaudier the patter, eh?

And my favorite, The Big Lebowski:

Walter Sobchak: You want a toe? I can get you a toe, believe me. There are ways, Dude. You don't wanna know about it, believe me.

Malibu Police Chief: Mr. Treehorn draws a lot of water in this town. You don't draw shit, Lebowski. Now we got a nice, quiet little beach community here, and I aim to keep it nice and quiet. So let me make something plain. I don't like you sucking around, bothering our citizens, Lebowski. I don't like your jerk-off name. I don't like your jerk-off face. I don't like your jerk-off behavior, and I don't like you, jerk-off. Do I make myself clear?
The Dude: [after a pause] I'm sorry, I wasn't listening.

The Big Lebowski: Your revolution is over, Mr. Lebowski. Condolences. The bums lost. My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski?

The Dude: Hey, careful, man, there's a beverage here.

[Rosemary Harris]

"Sidney, you're a cookie full of arsenic."
Burt Lancaster to Tony Curtis

[Michael]

"People think that Hell is fire and brimstone and the Devil poking you in the butt with a pitchfork, but it's not. Hell is when you should have walked away, but you didn't."

- Gary Oldman in Romeo is Bleeding

[Donna]

Oooooh - great subject and some great quotes!

Some of my own favourites:

Eve Arden in MILDRED PIERCE: "Personally, I’m convinced that alligators have the right idea. They eat their young."

Jane Greer to Robert Mitchum in THE BIG STEAL: "What I like about you is you’re rock bottom. I wouldn’t expect you to understand this, but it’s a great comfort for a girl to know she couldn't possibly sink any lower."

From THE NARROW MARGIN "What kind of a dish was she? The sixty-cent special - cheap, flashy, strictly poison under the gravy."

Barbara Stanwyck in CLASH BY NIGHT: "What do you want, Joe, my life history? Here it is in four words: big ideas, small results."

Sam Jaffe in ASPHALT JUNGLE: "Experience has taught me never to trust a policeman. Just when you think one's all right, he turns legit."

From OUT OF THE PAST "A dame with a rod is like a guy with a knitting needle."

And, of course, too many to mention from Chandler.

[Jon Jordan]

a couple non-noir quotes I love:

"It's not my planet monkeyboy" John Lithgow in Buckaroo Banzai

"It's 106 miles to Chicago, we've got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark, and we're wearing sunglasses"
John Belushi - Blues Brothers

[Cornelia Read]

Mae West and Cary Grant in SHE DONE HIM WRONG:

Captain Cummings: Haven't you ever met a man who could make you happy?

Lady Lou: Sure, lots of times.

[Rebecca]

Best 1940s-style film noir quote misplaced into another decade and medium: From HOWARD THE DUCK: "All right, that's enough. Release the female creature."

[Jersey Jack]

When asked the secret of his success, J.R. Ewing told his DALLAS audience:

"Once you give up your integrity, the rest if a piece of cake."

[Tim Maleeny]

also from OUT OF THE PAST, the classic exchange between Jane Greer and Robert Mitchum:
"I don't want to die."
"Neither do I, baby, but if I have to, I'm going to die last."

[Brian Thornton]

Now here's a topic I can really sink my teeth into. All of mine are from film noir (or at least from the hard-boiled school). Here they are in no particular order:

Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart in THE BIG SLEEP (the first one as a call-back to Martha Vickers mentioning that Bogart was not very tall in that previous scene):

Bacall: So you're a private detective. I didn't know that they existed except in books, or else they were greasy little men snooping in hotel corridors. My, you're a mess, aren't you?

Bogart: I'm not very tall, either. Next time I'll come on stilts, wear a white tie, and carry a tennis racquet.

Bacall: I doubt if even that would help.

(This one struck me as particularly good in light of the irony that Bogart got his start on Broadway during the 20's playing the literal carefree young man about town who bounds into the room in the middle of the second scene of act one of your standard 20s comedy-of-manners, carrying a tennis racquet and boisterously shouting, "Tennis, anyone?")

And then there's later in the same scene:

Bacall: You know, I don't see what there is to be cagey about, Mr. Marlowe, and I don't like your manners.

Bogart: Well, I'm not crazy about yours. I didn't ask to see you. I don't mind if you don't like my manners, I don't like 'em myself, they're pretty bad. I grieve over them long winter evenings. And I don't mind you ritzing me or drinking your lunch out of a bottle, but don't waste your time trying to cross-examine me.

And while we're working a Chandler/Marlowe theme, here's one from the first Marlowe movie: MURDER MY SWEET.

Dick Powell: Come on, pal, eight years is a lotta gin. They don't know anything about Velma here.

Mike Mazurky: Who asked you to stick your face in?

Powell: You did. Remember me? I'm the guy that came in with you, Chunky.

AND later in the same film:

Powell (Voiceover): I spent a buck in another bar for some history. Mike Florian owned the joint until 1939. He died in the middle of a glass of beer. His wife Jessie finished it for him. Tracing her was easy. I could do it. A really bright third-grader could have done it, but not Malloy. He needed a private detective. She was a charming, middle-aged lady with a face like a bucket of mud. I gave her a drink. She was a gal who'd take a drink, if she had to knock you down to get the bottle.

Then there's my favorite line from THE MALTESE FALCON, the last one, an exchange between Ward Bond as Tom Polhaus and Bogart as Spade:

Bond (Lifting the statuette): It's heavy, Sam. What is it?

Bogart: The- uh, stuff that dreams are made of.

[MichaelKoryta]

A few from my friend and fellow noir geek Stewart Moon:

Farewell, My Lovely
Dick Powell: I caught the blackjack right behind my ear. A black pool opened up at my feet. I dived in. It had no bottom.

The Big Steal
Jane Greer to Robert Mitchum: What I like about you is
you're rock bottom. I wouldn't expect you to understand this, but it's a great comfort for a girl to know she could not possibly sink any lower.

Clash by Night
Barbara Stanwyck to Keith Andes: What do you want, Joe, my life history? Here it is in four words: big ideas, small results.

The Killing
Sterling Hayden talking to Marie Windsor: I know you like a book, ya little tramp. You'd sell your own mother for a piece of fudge. But you're smart with it. Smart enough to know when to sell and when to sit tight. You've got a great big dollar sign there where most women have a heart.

[Jonathan Hayes]

One from KISS ME DEADLY...

Carl Evello: Look Mike, I like you. I like the way you handle yourself. You seem like a reasonable man. Why don't we make a deal. What's it worth to you to drag your considerable talents back to the gutter you crawled out of?