Quote of the Day, 8/5/06

Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe novels make for great reads and great movies as well. Here are a few memorable lines from two classics -- note the fun metaphors! ... Now that I've put these quotes in here, I'm itching to go read some Chandler.

The Big Sleep
The General spoke again, slowly, using his strength as carefully as an out-of-work show-girl uses her last good pair of stockings.

Dead men are heavier than broken hearts.

What did it matter where you lay once you were dead? In a dirty sump or in a marble tower on top of a high hill. 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.

Farewell, My Lovely
I needed a drink, I needed a lot of life insurance, I needed a vacation, I needed a home in the country. What I had was a coat, a hat and a gun.

The voice got as cool as a cafeteria dinner.

I walked back through the arch and started up the steps. It was a nice walk if you liked grunting. There were two hundred and eighty steps up to Cabrillo Street. They were drifted over with windblown sand and the handrail was as cold and wet as a toad's belly.