Dick Powell credited as playing...
Philip Marlowe
- Philip Marlowe: She was a charming middle-aged lady with a face like a bucket of mud. I gave her a drink. She was a gal who'd take a drink, if she had to knock you down to get the bottle.
- Philip Marlowe: "'Okay Marlowe,' I said to myself. 'You're a tough guy. You've been sapped twice, choked, beaten silly with a gun, shot in the arm until you're crazy as a couple of waltzing mice. Now let's see you do something really tough - like putting your pants on.'"
- Philip Marlowe: I caught the blackjack right behind my ear. A black pool opened up at my feet. I dived in. It had no bottom. I felt pretty good - like an amputated leg.
- Philip Marlowe: [about his gun] That's just part of my clothes. I hardly ever shoot anybody with it.
- Philip Marlowe: He died in 1940, in the middle of a glass of beer. His wife Jessie finished it for him.
- Lindsay Marriott: I'm afraid I don't like your manner.
- Philip Marlowe: Yeah, I've had complaints about it, but it keeps getting worse.
- Philip Marlowe: It was a nice little front yard. Cozy, okay for the average family. Only you'd need a compass to go to the mailbox. The house was all right, too, but it wasn't as big as Buckingham Palace.
- Philip Marlowe: Now this is beginning to make sense, in a screwy sort of a way. I get dragged in and get money shoved at me. I get pushed out and get money shoved at me. Everybody pushes me in, everybody pushes me out. Nobody wants me to DO anything. Okay, put a check in the mail. I cost a lot not to do anything. I get restless. Throw in a trip to Mexico.
- Helen Grayle: I hadn't supposed there were enough murders these days to make detecting very attractive to a young man.
- Philip Marlowe: I stir up trouble on the side.
- Ann Grayle: You know, I think you're nuts. You go barging around without a very clear idea of what you're doing. Everybody bats you down, smacks you over the head, fills you full of stuff... and you keep right on hitting between tackle and end. I don't think you even know which SIDE you're on.
- Philip Marlowe: I don't know which side anybody's on. I don't even know who's playing today.
- Helen Grayle: It's a long story and not pretty.
- Philip Marlowe: I got lots of time and I'm not squeamish.
- Philip Marlowe: My throat felt sore, but the fingers feeling it didn't feel anything. They were just a bunch of bananas that looked like fingers.
- Lt. Randall: [during an interrogation] How do you feel?
- Philip Marlowe: Like a duck in a shooting gallery.
- [Moose has taken Marlowe to Florian's to look for Velma]
- Philip Marlowe: I tried to picture him in love with somebody, but it didn't work.
- Moose Malloy: They changed it a lot. There was a stage where she worked... and some booths... pink flowers was in the slatwork. She was cute as lace pants.
- Helen Grayle: [after Mr. Grayle takes Marlowe's gun] You know, this'll be the first time I've ever killed anyone I knew so little and liked so well. What's your first name?
- Philip Marlowe: Philip, for short.
- Helen Grayle: Philip. Philip Marlowe... named for a duke. You're just a nice mug. I've got a name for a duchess: Mrs. Leuwen Lockridge Grayle. Just a couple of mugs - we could have got along.
- Philip Marlowe: He was doubled up on his face in that bag-of-old-clothes position that always means the same thing: he had been killed by an amateur. Or, by somebody who wanted it to look like an amateur job. Nobody else would hit a man that many times with a sap.