“Everything written with vitality expresses that vitality: there are no dull subjects, only dull minds. All men who read escape from something else into what lies behind the printed page; the quality of the dream may be argued, but its release has become a functional necessity. All men must escape at times from the deadly rhythm of their private thoughts. It is part of the process of life among thinking beings.”

—  Raymond Chandler , book The Simple Art of Murder

essay, first appeared in The Atlantic Monthly (November, 1945)
The Simple Art of Murder (1950)

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Raymond Chandler 124
Novelist, screenwriter 1888–1959

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