Carmen Sternwood: You're not very tall are you?
Philip Marlowe: Well, I, uh, I try to be.
Ida: Personally, Veda's convinced me that alligators have the right idea. They eat their young.
Herbie Hawkins: Well, if I was gonna kill you, I wouldn't do a dumb thing like hitting you on the head. First of all, I don't like the fingerprint angle. Of course, I could always wear gloves. Press your hands against the pipe after you were dead and make you look like a suicide. Except it don't seem hardly likely that you'd beat yourself to death with a club. I'd murder you so it didn't look like murder.
Mark McPherson: I suspect nobody and everybody. I am strictly trying to get at the truth.
Rachel Cooper: Women are such durn fools.
Leona Stevenson: Henry! Henry! Save me.
George Loomis: Too bad, they can't play it for you now, Rose.
Barton Keyes: Walter, you're all washed up.
Johnny Clay: You like money. You've got a great big dollar sign there where most women have a heart.
Bruno Anthony: I have a theory that you should do everything before you die.
Joe Gillis: You're Norma Desmond. You used to be in silent pictures. You used to be big.
Norma Desmond: I am big! It's the pictures that got small.
Police Inspector Nakajima: Bad luck either makes a man or destroys him. Are you gonna let it destroy you? Depending how you take it, bad luck can be a big break.
David Sutton: My liver rushes in where angels fear to tread.
Johnny: There's only two things in this world that a 'real man' needs: a cup of coffee and a good smoke.
Harry Lime: What did you want me to do? Be reasonable. You didn't expect me to give myself up... 'It's a far, far better thing that I do.' The old limelight. The fall of the curtain. Oh, Holly, you and I aren't heroes. The world doesn't make any heroes outside of your stories.
Quinlan: Come on, read my future for me.
Tanya: You haven't got any.
Quinlan: Hmm? What do you mean?
Tanya: Your future's all used up.
Gilda: Would it interest you to know how much I hate you, Johnny?
Johnny Farrell: Very much.
Gilda: I hate you so much that I would destroy myself to take you down with me.
Cahill: Mr. Ballentine, you're the defendant in this case, are you not?
Larry Ballentine: I am.
Cahill: Charged with the brutal murder of Verna Carlson.
Larry Ballentine: That's right.
Cahill: Are you willing to describe for the jury - to describe truthfully - the events which led to the placement of that charge?
Larry Ballentine: I certainly am.
Cahill: To the jury, please.
Nick Benko: Don't fight it, Eddie! What are you trying to do, hold onto your self-respect? Did your self-respect help you hold your job? Did your self-respect give you a new column?