Extended excerpt [Fiction, Narrator]:

“I filled a pipe, paraded the chessmen and inspected them for French shaves and loose buttons, and played a championship tournament game between Gortchakoff and Meninkin, seventy-two moves to a draw, a prize specimen of the irresistible force meeting the immovable object, a battle without armor, a war without blood, and as elaborate a waste of human intelligence as you can find outside an advertising agency.” (p. 156)

Source: Library – The Long Goodbye (1953) Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) No. 518598818

Extended excerpt [Fiction – Narrator ‘Philip Marlowe,’ describing a drive along the Pacific Ocean]:

“No moon, no fuss, hardly a sound of the surf. No smell. None of the harsh wild smell of the sea. A California ocean. California, the department-store state. The most of everything and the best of nothing.” (p. 88)

Source: Library – The Little Sister (1949) Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) No. 7467694

Extended excerpt [Letter to friend & Atlantic Monthly magazine editor Charles Morton]:

“Charlie Brackett, that fading wit, said: “Chandler’s books are not good enough, nor his pictures bad enough, to justify that article.” I wasted a little time trying to figure out what that meant. It seems to mean that the only guy who can speak his mind about Hollywood is either (a) a failure in Hollywood, or (b) a celebrity somewhere else. I would reply to Mr. Brackett that if my books had been any worse, I should not have been invited to Hollywood, and that if they had been any better, I should not have come.” (p. 56)

Source: Library – Selected Letters of Raymond Chandler (1981) International Standard Book Number (ISBN) 0-231-05080-1

Extended excerpt [Letter to literary agent Carl Brandt]:

“They might start worrying about something they could really help if they tried, because it is pretty obvious that the debasement of the human mind caused by a constant flow of fraudulent advertising is no trivial thing. There is more than one way to conquer a country.” (p. 139)

Source: Library –  Raymond Chandler Speaking (1962|1997 University of CA Press edition) International Standard Book Number (ISBN) 0-520-20835-8

Extended excerpt [Fiction – character ‘Philip Marlowe,’ speaking & referring to ‘Mrs. Grayle’]:

“Do you think you can do anything for us? the blonde asked slowly, looking down into her glass. “If you think you can, I’d be delighted. But the loss is rather small compared with having any more fuss with gangsters and awful people.”

“I don’t know very much about it really,” I said.

“Oh, I hope you can.” She gave me a smile I could feel in my hip pocket.” (p. 105)

Source: Library – Farewell, My Lovely (1940) Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) No. 15254702

Extended excerpt [Letter to fellow author Erle Stanley Gardner, the creator of the Perry Mason fictional detective series]:

“And here I am at 2:30am writing about technique, in spite of a strong conviction that the moment a man begins to talk about technique, that’s proof he is fresh out of ideas.” (p. 9)

Source: Library – Selected Letters of Raymond Chandler (1981) International Standard Book Number (ISBN) 0-231-05080-1

Extended excerpt [Journal entry]:

“There are two kinds of truth: the truth that lights the way and the truth that warms the heart. The first of these is science, and the second is art. Neither is independent of the other or more important than the other. Without art, science would be as useless as a pair of high forceps in the hands of a plumber. Without science, art would become a crude mess of folklore and emotional quackery. The truth of art keeps science from becoming inhuman, and the truth of science keeps art from becoming ridiculous.” (p. 7)

Source: Library – The Notebooks of Raymond Chandler and English Summer (1976) International Standard Book Number (ISBN) 0-912-94633-4

Extended excerpt [Undated “brittle little communication,” written about 18 months after Chandler had been rejected as a screenwriter by an unnamed Hollywood producer.]: “I am not trying to knock the art or profession of writing for the screen. This as to do with my private conception of what writing is, and what a writer is entitled to get out of his work, other than money. It has to do with magic and emotion and vision, with the free flow of images, thoughts, and ideas, with discipline that comes from within and is not imposed from without. It has to do with that sense of power over one’s medium which comes not frequently and lasts not long, and is one of the least egotistical emotions in the world, because one knows perfectly well it is merely an established communication with the subconscious mind. It has to do with that rare facility of expression which has nothing to do with conscious technique, since technique bears the same relation to it as a grammarian bears to a poet. Without this or the hope of it, writing is a lost endeavor. Without magic, there is no art. Without art, there is no idealism. Without idealism, there is no integrity. Without integrity, there is nothing but production, and in the end not even that, since showmanship on the most frankly commercial level contains an element of incessant striving for perfection, if it be only a perfection of detail.” (pp. 68-69)

Source note: According to the Notebooks of Raymond Chandler publisher’s acknowledgments, the essay “A Qualified Farewell” first appeared in Antaeus under the title “Farewell, My Hollywood.”

Source: Library – The Notebooks of Raymond Chandler and English Summer (1976) International Standard Book Number (ISBN) 0-912-94633-4