James M. Cain Quotes

Love, when you get fear in it, it’s not love any more. It’s hate.

Tomorrow night, if I come back, there'll be kisses. Lovely ones, Frank. Not drunken kisses. Kisses with dreams in them. Kisses that come from life, not death.""It's a date.

I kissed her. Her eyes were shining up at me like two blue stars. It was like being in church.

The hand that holds the money cracks the whip.

Just you and me and the road.

By nine, Mildred was powdered, puffed, perfumed, and patted to that state of semi-transparency that a woman seems to achieve when she is really dressed to go out.

We’re just two punks, Frank. God kissed us on the brow that night. He gave us all that two people can ever have. And we just weren’t the kind that could have it. We had all that love, and we just cracked up under it. It’s a big airplane engine, that takes you through the sky, right up to the top of the mountain. But when you put it in a Ford, it just shakes it to pieces. That’s what we are, Frank, a couple of Fords. God is up there laughing at us.

He might be asleep, but even asleep he looked like he knew more than most guys awake.

If you have to do it, you can do it.

I had killed a man, for money and a woman. I didn’t have the money and I didn’t have the woman.

There's a shark. Following the ship."I tried not to look, but couldn't help it. I saw a flash of dirty white down in the green. We walked back to the deck chairs."Walter, we'll have to wait. Till the moon comes up.""I guess we better have a moon.""I want to see that fin. That black fin. Cutting the water in the moonlight.

A receptionist is a lazy dame that can’t do anything on earth, and wants to sit out front where everybody can watch her do it.

Have you got a little bit of gypsy in you?""Gypsy? I had rings in my ears when I was born.

We're the friendliest enemies that ever were.

Restaurant, hey. That's what I've got. Whole goddam country lives selling hot dogs to each other.