Dashiell Hammett Quotes

“She stared at him dully and said: “I don’t like crooks, and even if I did, I wouldn’t like crooks that are stool-pigeons, and if I liked crooks that are stool-pigeons, I still wouldn’t like you.” She turned to the outer door.”

“Crooks stood up from his bunk and faced her. "I had enough," he said coldly. "You got no rights comin' in a colored man's room. You got no rights messing around in here at all. Now you jus' get out, an' get out quick. If you don't, I'm gonna ast the boss not to ever let you come in the barn no more."She turned on him in scorn. "Listen, Nigger," she said. "You know what I can do to you if you open your trap?"Crooks stared helplessly at her, and then he sat down on his bunk and drew into himself.She closed on him. "You know what I could do?"Crooks seemed to grow smaller, and he pressed himself against the wall. "Yes, ma'am.""Well, you keep your place then, Nigger. I could get you strung up on a tree so easy it ain't even funny."Crooks had reduced himself to nothing. There was no personality, no ego--nothing to arouse either like or dislike. He said, "Yes, ma'am," and his voice was toneless.For a moment she stood over him as though waiting for him to move so that she could whip at him again; but Crooks sat perfectly still, his eyes averted, everything that might be hurt drawn in. She turned at last to the other two.”

“If I could turn my thoughts into spoken words and share them with someone, they’d become real and mean something. Now, they were only lines that could be erased when I didn’t feel them anymore or hopeful thoughts that, like shadows, would disappear when the sun went away. - Rebecca Meyer, Crooked Lines”

“You shall love your crooked neighbour, with your crooked heart.”

“Stupid crowds are the greatest wealth of the crook politicians!”

“In a crooked mind even the right thing gets crooked.”

“The cheaper the crook, the gaudier the patter.”

“Nixon was so crooked that he needed servants to help him screw his pants on every morning.”

“There is no way to be truly great in this world. We are all impaled on the crook of conditioning.”

“O stand, stand at the window As the tears scald and start;You shall love your crooked neighbour With your crooked heart.”