James M. Cain

I kissed her. Her eyes were shining up at me like two blue stars. It was like being in church.

"Have you got a little bit of gypsy in you?""Gypsy? I had rings in my ears when I was born."

We’re just two punks, Frank. God kissed us on the brow that night. He gave us all that two people can ever have. And we just weren’t the kind that could have it. We had all that love, and we just cracked up under it. It’s a big airplane engine, that takes you through the sky, right up to the top of the mountain. But when you put it in a Ford, it just shakes it to pieces. That’s what we are, Frank, a couple of Fords. God is up there laughing at us.

I had killed a man, for money and a woman. I didn’t have the money and I didn’t have the woman.

"There’s a shark. Following the ship."I tried not to look, but couldn’t help it. I saw a flash of dirty white down in the green. We walked back to the deck chairs."Walter, we’ll have to wait. Till the moon comes up.""I guess we better have a moon.""I want to see that fin. That black fin. Cutting the water in the moonlight."

"... Walter, the time has come.""What do you mean, Phyllis?""For me to meet my bridegroom. The only one I ever loved. One night I'll drop off the stern of the ship. Then, little by little I'll feel his icy fingers creeping into my heart."

Stealing a man’s wife, that’s nothing, but stealing his car, that’s larceny.

I loved her like a rabbit loves a rattlesnake.

A woman is a funny animal.

Love, when you get fear in it, it’s not love any more. It’s hate.

"Tomorrow night, if I come back, there’ll be kisses. Lovely ones, Frank. Not drunken kisses. Kisses with dreams in them. Kisses that come from life, not death.""It's a date."

That’s all it takes, one drop of fear, to curdle love into hate.