# Quote — Raymond Chandler, The Simple Art of Murder

> Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid. The detective in this kind of story must be such a man. He is the hero, he is everything. He must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man. He must be, to use a rather weathered phrase, a man of honor, by instinct, by inevitability, without thought of it, and certainly without saying it. He must be the best man in his world and a good enough man for any world.

- Author: [Raymond Chandler](https://www.leafyquotes.com/raymond-chandler.md)
- Book: [The Simple Art of Murder](https://www.leafyquotes.com/raymond-chandler/the-simple-art-of-murder.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Raymond_Chandler#The_Simple_Art_of_Murder_(1950)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/raymond-chandler/the-simple-art-of-murder/down-these-mean

## More from this book

> The mystery story is a kind of writing that need not dwell in the shadow of the past and owes little if any allegiance to the cult of the classics. It is a good deal more than unlikely that any writer now living will produce a better historical novel than Henry Esmond, a better tale of children than The Golden Age, a sharper social vignette than Madame Bovary, a more graceful and elegant evocation than The Spoils of Poynton, a wider and richer canvas than War and Peace or The Brothers Karamazov. But to devise a more plausible mystery than The Hound of the Baskervilles or The Purloined Letter should not be too difficult. Nowadays it would be rather more difficult not to.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/raymond-chandler/the-simple-art-of-murder/the-mystery-story.md)

> Undoubtedly the stories about them [hard-boiled detectives] had a fantastic element. Such things happened, but not so rapidly, nor to so close-knit a group of people, nor within so narrow a frame of logic. This was inevitable because the demand was for constant action; if you stopped to think you were lost. When in doubt, have a man come through a door with a gun in his hand.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/raymond-chandler/the-simple-art-of-murder/undoubtedly-the-stories.md)

> The boys with their feet on the desks know that the easiest murder case in the world to break is the one somebody tried to get very cute with.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/raymond-chandler/the-simple-art-of-murder/the-boys-with.md)