Her voice was as dead as the summer before last. (Nevada Gas) - Raymond Chandler

Americans will eat anything if it is toasted and held together with a couple of toothpicks and has lettuce sticking out of the sides, preferably a little wilted.

"The solution, once revealed, must seem to have been inevitable. At least half of all the mystery novels published violate this law."

(Casual Notes on the Mystery Novel, 1949)

Guns never settle anything, I said. They are just a fast curtain to a bad second act