He sounded like a man who had slept well and didn't owe too much money. - Raymond Chandler

After a moment I pushed my chair back and went over to the french windows. I opened the screens and stepped out on to the porch. The night was all around, soft and quiet. The white moonlight was cold and clear, like the justice we dream of but don't find.

Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid. The detective must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man. He must be, to use a rather weathered phrase, a man of honor.

All she did was take her hand out of her bag, with a gun in it. All she did was point it at me and smile. All I did was nothing.