Maltese Falcon Quotes

He looked rather pleasantly, like a blonde satan.

Joel Cairo: You always have a very smooth explanation ready. Sam Spade: What do you want me to do, learn to stutter?

I couldn't be fonder of you if you were my own son. But, well, if you lose a son, its possible to get another. There's only one Maltese Falcon.

Nice day for a funeral.

I distrust a man that says when. If he's got to be careful not to drink to much it's because he's not to be trusted when he does.

My way of learning is to heave a wild and unpredictable monkey-wrench into the machinery.

The cheaper the crook, the gaudier the patter.

He felt like somebody had taken the lid off life and let him see the works.

We didn't exactly believe your story.' Then --?' 'We believed your two hundred dollars.' 'You mean --' She seemed not to know what he meant. 'I mean that you paid us more than if you'd been telling the truth,' he explained blandly, 'and enough more to make it all right.

Talking is something you can't do judiciously unless you keep in practice.

Brigid O'Shaughnessy: “I haven't lived a good life. I've been bad, worse than you could know.” Sam Spade “You know, that's good, because if you actually were as innocent as you pretend to be, we'd never get anywhere

Listen, Dundy, it's been a long time since I burst into tears because a policeman didn't like me.

I don't mind a reasonable amount of trouble.

The problem with the world is that everyone is a few drinks behind.

I dont mind a reasonable amount of trouble

You always have, I must say, a smooth explanation ready." "What do you want me to do? Learn to stutter?

When a man's partner is killed he's supposed to do something about it. It doesn't make any difference what you thought of him. He was your partner and you're supposed to do something about it. Then it happens we were in the detective business. Well, when one of your organization gets killed it's bad business to let the killer get away with it. It's bad all around-bad for that one organization, bad for every detective everywhere. Sam Spade

Yes,' Spade growled. 'And when you're slapped you'll take it and like it.' He released Cairo's wrist and with a thick open hand struck the side of his face three times savagely.

He said: "I'm going to send you over. The chances are you'll get off with life. That means you'll be out again in twenty years. You're an angel. I'll wait for you." He cleared his throat. "If they hang you I'll always remember you.

Gutman smiled benignly at him and said: “Well, Wilmer, I’m sorry indeed to lose you, and I want you to know that I couldn’t be any fonder of you if you were my own son; but—well, by Gad!—if you lose a son it’s possible to get another—and there’s only one Maltese falcon.

To swipe the immortal lines uttered by Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon, a great mystery should take "the lid off life and let [you] look at the works.

What do you want me to do, learn to stutter?

But that's the part of it I always liked. He adjusted himself to beams falling, and then no more of them fell, and he adjusted himself to them not falling.

That's wonderful. I do like a man that tells you right out he’s looking out for himself. Don’t we all? I don’t trust a man that says he’s not. And the man that’s telling the truth when he says he’s not I distrust most of all, because he’s and ass and an ass that’s going contrary to the laws of nature.

-Desapareció - dijo Spade - como desaparece un puño cuando se abre la mano.

The hell of it, Miss- Is your name Wonderly or Leblanc?' She blushed and murmured: 'It's really O'Shaughnessy - Brigid O'Shaughnessy

You're a good man, sister

You're not going to go around poking at the fire and straightening up the room again, are you?

I certainly wish you would have invented a more reasonable story. I felt distinctly like an idiot repeating it." Sam Spade (The Maltese Falcon)

This is the stuff dreams are made of, right?" I could've pointed out the misquotation; everybody goes for Humphrey Bogarst's famous like from The Maltese Falcon, when the words actually are "We are such stuff as dreams are made on" and they belong to Master Shakespeare, but you know what? With all due to respect to the women's movement, the fact is that, on rare occasions, silence really is a girl's best garment. So I just smiled instead.

And when you're slapped you'll take it and like it.

You're good. You're very good. It's chiefly your eyes, I think, and that throb you get into your voice when you say things like 'Be generous, Mr. Spade.

Siento perderte, y quiero que sepas que no te tendría más cariño si fueras hijo mío. Pero, compréndelo, si se pierde un hijo, siempre es posible tener otro; en cambio, sólo existe un halcón maltés.

Yes, but- oh, sweetheart! - it wasn't only like that I would have come back to you sooner or later. From the first instant I saw you I knew..." Spade said tenderly: "You angel! Well, if you get a good break you will be out of San Quentin in twenty years and you can come back to me then.

We believed your two hundred dollars.

He stood beside the fireplace and looked at her with eyes that studied, weighed, judged her without pretense that they were not studying, weighing, judging her.

He went like that,” Spade said, “like a fist when you open your hand.

Он исчез, как исчезает кулак, когда разжимаешь пальцы («Мальтийский сокол»)

Samuel Spade’s jaw was long and bony, his chin a jutting v under the more flexible v of his mouth. His nostrils curved back to make another, smaller, v. His yellow-grey eyes were horizontal. The v motif was picked up again by thickish brows rising outward from twin creases above a hooked nose, and his pale brown hair grew down—from high flat temples—in a point on his forehead. He looked rather pleasantly like a blond satan.

We begin well, sir," the fat man purred … "I distrust a man that says when. If he's got to be careful not to drink too much it's because he's not to be trusted when he does. … Well, sir, here's to plain speaking and clear understanding. … You're a close-mouthed man?" Spade shook his head. "I like to talk." "Better and better!" the fat man exclaimed. "I distrust a close-mouthed man. He generally picks the wrong time to talk and says the wrong things. Talking's something you can't do judiciously unless you keep in practice.

I don't think he even knew he had settled back naturally into the same groove he had jumped out of in Tacoma. But that's the part of it I always liked. He adjusted himself to beams falling, and then no more of them fell, and he adjusted himself to them not falling.

Samuel Spade's jaw was long and bony, his chin a jutting v under the more flexible v of his mouth. His nostrils curved back to make another, smaller, v. His yellow-grey eyes were horizontal. The V motif was picked up again by thickish brows rising outward from twin creases above a hooked nose, and his pale brown hair grew down--from high flat temples--in a point on his forehead. He looked rather pleasantly like a blond Satan.

And you,” Phineas turned to Percy, “well now, you don’t even know who you are! I could tell you, of course, but…ha! What fun would that be? And Brigid O’Shaughnessy shot Miles Archer in The Maltese Falcon. And Darth Vader is actually Luke’s father. And the winner of the next Super Bowl will be—” “Got it,” Frank muttered.

¡Oh, cariño!, no fue solamente por eso, habría acudido a ti tarde o temprano. Desde el primer día que te vi supe que… —¡Ángel mío! —dijo Spade con ternura—. Mira, si tienes suerte dentro de veinte años saldrás de San Quintín, y entonces me vienes a buscar.

It’s a long while since I burst out crying because policemen didn’t like me.

Я не доверяю людям, которые остерегаются пить. Если человек боится напиться, значит, он не доверяет себе («Мальтийский сокол»)

Хорошо говорит тот, кто постоянно в этом практикуется («Мальтийский сокол»)

He was apparently as many years past forty as Spade was past thirty.

Sam Spade: You're a good man, sister.

Cairo: You have always, i must say, a smooth explanation ready. Spade: What do you want me to do? Learn to stutter?

Here's to plain speaking and clear understanding.

But that’s the part of it I always liked. He adjusted himself to beams falling, and then no more of them fell, and he adjusted himself to them not falling.

Desapareció -dijo Spade- como desaparece un puño cuando se abre la mano

His eyes burned yellowly.

When hunting a Maltese Falcon, catch it, but don’t scratch it!

The life he knew was a clean orderly sane responsible affair. Now a falling beam had shown him that life was fundamentally none of these things. He, the good citizen-husband-father, could be wiped out between office and restaurant by the accident of a falling beam. He knew then that men died at haphazard like that, and lived only while blind chance spared them.

[Spade] scowled at Gutman and burst out irritably: "Jesus God! is this the first thing you guys ever stole? You're a fine lot of lollipops! What are you going to do next-- get down and pray?

We begin well, sir,” the fat man purred, turning with a proffered glass in his hand. “I distrust a man that says when. If he’s got to be careful not to drink too much it’s because he’s not to be trusted when he does.

The boy spoke two words, the first a short guttural verb, the second “you.” “People lose teeth talking like that.” Spade’s voice was still amiable though his face had become wooden. “If you want to hang around you’ll be polite.” The boy repeated his two words.

Make the options as equal as possible, with one seeming only slightly better than the other. A classic example of a choice between two positives is between love and honor. In A Farewell to Arms, the hero chooses love. In The Maltese Falcon (and almost all detective stories), the hero chooses honor.

His first job was to find some rich lady’s pedigree Siamese cat. He managed to run it over on the way to see her. The second job was a divorce case – which you may think is run-of-the-mill until I tell you that the clients were perfectly happily married until he came along… There hadn’t been a third case.

He turned to face her. The two vertical lines above his nose were deep clefts between red wales. "I don't give a damn about your honesty," he told her, trying to make himself speak calmly. "I don't care what kind of tricks you're up to, what your secrets are, but I've got to have something to show that you know what you're doing." "I do know. Please believe that I do, and that it's all for the best, and--" "Show me," he ordered. "I'm willing to help you. I've done what I could so far. If necessary I'll go ahead blindfolded, but I can't do it without more confidence in you than I've got now. You've got to convince me that you know what it's all about, that you're not simply fiddling around by guess and by God, hoping it'll come out all right somehow in the end.

I nearly choked on my milkshake.

looking at Spade with cobalt-blue eyes that were both shy and probing.

go? We argued. I told him it was a fait accompli.

accompli.

Sam Spade: When you're slapped, you'll take it and like it.

Well . . . I can come back in twenty years, if you like.

Our conversations in private have not been such that I am anxious to continue them.

The books were all first editions, some autographed by the authors. Joseph Heller’s Catch-22, published in 1961; Norman Mailer’s The Naked and the Dead (1948); John Updike’s Rabbit, Run (1960); Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man (1952); Walker Percy’s The Moviegoer (1961); Philip Roth’s Goodbye, Columbus (1959); William Styron’s The Confessions of Nat Turner (1967); Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon (1929); Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood (1965); and J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye (1951).

Who killed Thursby?’ Spade said: ‘I don’t know.’ Bryan rubbed his black eyeglass-ribbon between thumb and fingers and said knowingly: ‘Perhaps you don’t, but you certainly could make an excellent guess.’ ‘Maybe, but I wouldn’t.’ The District Attorney raised his eyebrows. ‘I wouldn’t,’ Spade repeated. He was serene. ‘My guess might be excellent or it might be crummy, but Mrs Spade didn’t raise any children dippy enough to make guesses in front of a District Attorney, an Assistant District Attorney, and a stenographer.’ ‘Why shouldn’t you, if you’ve nothing to conceal?’ ‘Everybody,’ Spade responded mildly, ‘has something to conceal.’ ‘And you have – ?’ ‘My guesses, for one thing.

From Walt: The Grapes of Wrath, Les Misérables, To Kill a Mockingbird, Moby-Dick, The Ox-Bow Incident, A Tale of Two Cities, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Three Musketeers, Don Quixote (where your nickname came from), The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, and anything by Anton Chekhov. From Henry: Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, Cheyenne Autumn, War and Peace, The Things They Carried, Catch-22, The Sun Also Rises, The Blessing Way, Beyond Good and Evil, The Teachings of Don Juan, Heart of Darkness, The Human Comedy, The Art of War. From Vic: Justine, Concrete Charlie: The Story of Philadelphia Football Legend Chuck Bednarik, Medea (you’ll love it; it’s got a great ending), The Kama Sutra, Henry and June, The Onion Field, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Zorba the Greek, Madame Bovary, Richie Ashburn’s Phillies Trivia (fuck you, it’s a great book). From Ruby: The Holy Bible (New Testament), The Pilgrim’s Progress, Inferno, Paradise Lost, My Ántonia, The Scarlet Letter, Walden, Poems of Emily Dickinson, My Friend Flicka, Our Town. From Dorothy: The Gastronomical Me, The French Chef Cookbook (you don’t eat, you don’t read), Last Suppers: Famous Final Meals From Death Row, The Bonfire of the Vanities, The Scarlet Pimpernel, Something Fresh, The Sound and the Fury, The Maltese Falcon, Pride and Prejudice, Brides-head Revisited. From Lucian: Thirty Seconds over Tokyo, Band of Brothers, All Quiet on the Western Front, The Virginian, The Basque History of the World (so you can learn about your heritage you illiterate bastard), Hondo, Sackett, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Bobby Fischer: My 60 Memorable Games, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, Quartered Safe Out Here. From Ferg: Riders of the Purple Sage, Kiss Me Deadly, Lonesome Dove, White Fang, A River Runs Through It (I saw the movie, but I heard the book was good, too), Kip Carey’s Official Wyoming Fishing Guide (sorry, kid, I couldn’t come up with ten but this ought to do).

John Huston chegou, vindo da Costa Oeste, para encenar a tradução [de Bowles] de Huis Clos [de Sartre]. O Oliver que estava a produzir a peça em colaboração com Herman Levine, tinha visto recentemente The Maltese Falcon [A Relíquia Macabra], e ficara convencido de que o Huston era o homem em cujas mãos queria pôr o trabalho. Como havia apenas três figuras no elenco, achara que poderíamos usar actores franceses para os papéis... (...) ...Entaladas entre os dois avassaladores sotaques franceses, as inconfundíveis entoações da beldade do sul Ruth Ford surgiam ainda mais chocantes na sua intensidade viperina. Isso preocupou-me, mas a noite de estreia provou que estava enganado: a assistência gostou da Ford. Só mais tarde percebi que ela havia representado parcialmente hipnotizada. Era um dos truques de Huston. Durante a Segunda Grande Guerra, ele tinha usado a hipnose como um tratamento psiquiátrico para casos de fadiga de combate. O documentário que fizera sobre cinco casos destes, Let There Be Light, era extraordinariamente comovente, mas o exército proibiu a sua distribuição, e acabou por ficar enterrado. Esta faceta da personalidade do John intrigava-me particularmente, e estava sempre a discuti-la com ele, até que por fim começou a incluir sessões hipnóticas nos ensaios. O que me fascinou nessas experiências era a forma como revelavam a extrema maleabilidade da psique humana. Certo dia, Tyrone Power veio ver-nos. O John tinha preparado um bom espectáculo para ele. Já tinha levado a Annabella e a Ruth Ford ao ponto de poder levá-las ao transe apenas estalando os dedos perto das suas caras. A Annabella tinha vestida uma camisa de mangas arregaçadas. O John estalou os dedos e segurou-a para que se mantivesse direita de pé. Depois, mostrou um lápis de metal e acendeu um cigarro. Em seguida, disse-lhe: «Isto vai fazer-te cócegas. Vou tocar-te com a ponta do meu lápis.» E pressionou o cigarro na pele do antebraço dela, com força suficiente para o apagar. A Annabella soltou um risinho e esfregou um pouco o braço. Então, o John disse: «Agora vou tocar-te com o meu cigarro.» Tocou levemente o outro braço com o lápis, e ela soltou um grito de dor. Depois de a fazer voltar a si, fez-nos examinar os braços dela: aquele onde tinha apagado o cigarro não tinha marca nenhuma, mas o que tinha sido tocado pelo lápis apresentava uma mancha vermelha bem visível. Isso deixou-me intrigado. Não parecia haver nada de extraordinário na falsa queimadura, mas o facto de que a pele do outro braço tinha resistido ao contacto do fogo sem qualquer marca era muito mais difícil de entender e conduzia inevitavelmente a um problema de gradação. Até que ponto pode a carne manter-se insensível?

The Hoke Mosely series by Charles Willeford The Red Right Hand by Joel Townsley Rogers Kill the Boss Goodbye by Peter Rabe The Gravedigger/Coffin Ed series by Chester Himes The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett Interface by Joe Gores The Eighth Circle by Stanley Ellin Sleep and His Brother by Peter Dickinson The Light of Day by Eric Ambler

Some lines you just don't cross. Not in my business." "Your business?" Georgia rolled her eyes. "You mean the private detective business? I wasn't aware you guys had such ironclad rules about making out with clients." She ignored the choking sound he made. "Seriously, have you even seen The Maltese Falcon?" Darius' face heated. "This isn't some movie, Ms. Clare. You're not Mary Astor, and I'm sure as hell no Humphrey Bogart. Here in the real world, there are rules.

There's never any telling what you'll say or do next, except that it's bound to be something astonishing. By God, sir, you are a character.

We went to see 101 Dalmations. Herbert cried all the way through. He even cried in the commercials. That’s what sort of guy he is.

Arguing with someone like Herbert is a bit like hitting yourself with a brick.

And so she signed on, not knowing, surely, what is now quite clear to us: that she was about to create one of the enduring archetypes of the American screen, the noir female. Certainly this creature had her antecedents in the vamps of the silent screen. But they tended to be European in origin, and to hide their schemings under a highly romantic manner. It might also be argued that there were hints of what was to come in figures like Mary Astor's Brigid O'Shaughnessy in The Maltese Falcon (though she, of course, affected a genteel disguise for her true motives). But really the bluntness and hardness of Stanwyck's work was something essentially new, and the alacrity with which it was imitated in film after film of the 40s is one of the interesting, largely unexplored questions of our movie and social history. It surely had something to do with the freedom American women claimed for themselves during the war years, and the nervousness that stirred among males - especially males who were absent at the front and concerned about the fidelity of the girls they left behind. Hard to keep them down on the farm (or behind a suburban picket fence) after they had found work in the rough atmosphere of factories, known the joys of living alone and, for that matter, going to bars alone. Phyllis Dietrichson did none of those things, but she had been a working woman and she was clearly capable of - putting it mildly - a high degree of self-sufficiency.

Soon after, they were cuddling on the bed, watching a cable rerun of The Maltese Falcon.

But no single star of the genre captivated Osip more than Humphrey Bogart. With the exception of Casablanca (which Osip viewed as a woman’s movie), they had watched all of Bogart’s films at least twice. Whether in The Petrified Forest, To Have and Have Not, or, especially, The Maltese Falcon, Osip appreciated the actor’s hardened looks, his sardonic remarks, his general lack of sentiment. “You notice how in the first act he always seems so removed and indifferent; but once his indignation is roused, Alexander, there is no one more willing to do what is necessary—to act clear-eyed, quick, and without compunction. Here truly is a Man of Intent.

I certainly wish you would have invented a more reasonable story. I felt distinctly like an idiot repeating it." Joel Cairo to Sam Spade

The boy spoke two words, the first a short guttural verb, the second 'you'. - The Maltese Falcon

Kill a Mockingbird, The Godfather, L.A. Confidential, Like Water for Chocolate, The Color Purple, Crazy Rich Asians, The Maltese Falcon, Pride and Prejudice, Lonesome Dove, The Namesake, The Remains of the Day, No Country for Old Men, The Silence of the Lambs, and The Wizard of Oz.