Overhead the rain still pounded, with a remote sound, as if it was somebody else's rain. - Raymond Chandler

He [James Cain] is every kind of writer I detest...a Proust in greasy overalls, a dirty little boy with a piece of chalk and a board fence and nobody looking.

Her eyes rounded. She was puzzled. She was thinking. I could see, even on that short acquaintance, that thinking was always going to be a bother to her.

There's always something to do if you don't have to work or consider the cost. It's no real fun but the rich don't know that. They never had any. They never want anything very hard except maybe somebody else's wife and that's a pretty pale desire compared with the way a plumber's wife wants new curtains for the living room.