One would think a writer would be happy here — if a writer is ever happy anywhere. - Raymond Chandler

He had a heart as big as one of Mae West's hips

the daily papers were beginning to scream about how terrible it would be if you didn’t get your Christmas shopping done early. It would be terrible anyway; it always is.

She smiled a free, beautiful and perfectly natural smile. “And you cannot do a damn thing about all this, darling, unless you destroy Mavis Weld utterly and finally.”

“Last night she proved she was willing to destroy herself.”

“If she was not acting.” She looked at me sharply and laughed. “That hurt, did it not? You are in love with her.”

I said slowly, “That would be kind of silly. I could sit in the dark with her and hold hands, but for how long? In a little while she will drift off into a haze of glamour and expensive clothes and froth and unreality and muted sex. She won’t be a real person any more. Just a voice from a sound track, a face on a screen. I’d want more than that.