Maltese Falcon Sam Spade Quotes

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

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

I don't mind a reasonable amount of trouble.

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

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

You're a good man, sister

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.

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

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

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

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.