"From "Raymond Chandler Speaking" On his wife, after her death- "For 30 years, 10 months and four days, she was the light of my life, my whole ambit… - Raymond Chandler

She was the music heard faintly on the edge of sound.

Racket beer, sonny,” he said sadly. “Tasteless as a roadhouse blonde.” (Spanish Blood)

He turned and walked across the floor and out. I watched the door close. I listened to his steps going away down the imitation marble corridor. After a while they got faint, then they got silent. I kept on listening anyway.

Preoccupation with style will not produce it. No amount of editing and polishing will have any appreciable effect on the flavor of how a man writes. It is a product of the quality of his emotion and perception; it is the ability to transfer these to paper which makes him a writer, in contrast to the great number of people who have just as good emotions and just as keen perceptions, but cannot come within a googol of miles of putting them on paper.