At least half the mystery novels published violate the law that the solution, once revealed, must seem to be inevitable.

—Raymond Chandler

writing mystery novels publishing

About Raymond Chandler

Portrait of Raymond Chandler

Raymond Thornton Chandler (July 23, 1888 – March 26, 1959) was an American-British novelist and screenwriter. In 1932, at age 44, Chandler became a detective fiction writer after losing his job as an oil company executive during the Great Depression. His first short story, "Blackmailers Don't Shoot", was published in...

More quotations from Raymond Chandler

He looked about as inconspicuous as a tarantula on a slice of angel food.

—Raymond Chandler

She was everything you say and more. She was the best of my heart for thirty years. She was the music heard faintly at the edge of sound.

—Raymond Chandler

Chess is as elaborate a waste of human intelligence as you can find outside an advertising agency.

—Raymond Chandler

The Americans have none of the irony of the English, none of their cool poise, none of their manner. But they do have friendliness. Where an Englishman would give you his card, an American would very likely give you his shirt.

—Raymond Chandler

USA America England manners

More quotations tagged with “mystery”

The greatest mystery is not that we have been flung at random between the profusion of matter and of the stars, but that within this prison we can draw from ourselves images powerful enough to deny our nothingness.

—Andre Malraux

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We keep thinking of deity as a kind of fact, somewhere; God as a fact. God is simply our own notion of something that is symbolic of transcendence and mystery. The mystery is what’s important.

—Joseph Campbell

God mystery deity transcendence

They say that every snowflake is different. If that were true, how could the world go on? How could we ever get up off our knees? How could we ever recover from the wonder of it?

—Jeanette Winterson

wonder mystery awe surprise

Life, he realized, was much like a song. In the beginning there is mystery, in the end there is confirmation, but it’s in the middle where all the emotion resides to make the whole thing worthwhile.

—Nicholas Sparks in The Last Song

life memory mystery emotion

Sex appeal is fifty percent what you’ve got and fifty percent what people think you’ve got.

—Sophia Loren

mystery sex appeal sex appeal