American novelist, journalist & screenwriter (1892-1977)
A lot of novelists start late--Conrad, Pirandello, even Mark Twain. When you're young, chess is all right, and music and poetry. But novel-writing is something else. It has to be learned, but it can't be taught. This bunkum and stinkum of college creative writing courses! The academics don't know that the only thing you can do for someone who wants to write is to buy him a typewriter.
JAMES M. CAIN
The Paris Review, spring-summer 1978
Writing a novel is like working on foreign policy. There are problems to be solved. It's not all inspirational.
JAMES M. CAIN
The Paris Review, spring-summer 1978
I make no conscious effort to be tough, or hard-boiled, or grim, or any of the things I am usually called.
JAMES M. CAIN
Three of a Kind
New York is not even a city, it's a congerie of rotten villages.
JAMES M. CAIN
The Paris Review, spring-summer 1978
I write of the wish that comes true -- for some reason, a terrifying concept.
JAMES M. CAIN
preface, The Butterfly
The hand that holds the money cracks the whip.
JAMES M. CAIN
Mildred Pierce
That's all it takes, one drop of fear to curdle love into hate.
JAMES M. CAIN
Double Indemnity
All religions appeal to women vastly more than to men, and this, it seems to me, is because women are more often thwarted in their romantic desires than men are, or possibly because their more imaginative natures doom them to disappointment even when fulfillment is apparently theirs.
JAMES M. CAIN
60 Years of Journalism
Stealing a man's wife, that's nothing, but stealing his car, that's larceny.
JAMES M. CAIN
The Postman Always Rings Twice
Love, when you get fear in it, it's not love any more. It's hate.
JAMES M. CAIN
The Postman Always Rings Twice
Why is it that the movies seem unable to afford the writer the requital that he finds so quickly everywhere; burning shame for work badly done, glowing pride in work that hits the mark? If I do get at it, I ought to be able to shed light on a somewhat broader issue, which is the cinema's claim to a place in the sun. Is this really destined to be one of the major arts, worthy of serious critical attention: Or is it only a rich relative of the Muses, dressed in all her fine raiment, but condemned to go forever without a lover unless she pays him a fat sum to get in bed with her?
JAMES M. CAIN
60 Years of Journalism
I loved her like a rabbit loves a rattlesnake.
JAMES M. CAIN
Double Indemnity
Yes, I have actually mined coal, and distilled liquor, as well as seen a girl in a pink dress, and seen her take it off. I am 54 years old, weigh 220 pounds, and look like the chief dispatcher of a long-distance driving concern. I am a registered Democrat. I drink.
JAMES M. CAIN
The Butterfly
A gun is like breath to a drowning man--it has to be drawn in haste.
JAMES M. CAIN
The Paris Review, spring-summer 1978
I kissed her. Her eyes were shining up at me like two blue stars. It was like being in church.
JAMES M. CAIN
The Postman Always Rings Twice
When I am going through the back files of some magazine, and come across an article of mine that I feel was bad, I can't look at it. I have to flip the pages fast, and if it was an especially bad article, I am upset for the whole day, and have to pound the typewriter furiously to shake it out of my mind.
JAMES M. CAIN
60 Years of Journalism
A home is not a museum. It doesn't have to be furnished with Picasso paintings, or Sheraton suites, or Oriental rugs, or Chinese pottery. But it does have to be furnished with things that mean something to you.
JAMES M. CAIN
Mildred Pierce
A receptionist is a lazy dame that can't do anything on earth, and wants to sit out front where everybody can watch her do it.
JAMES M. CAIN
Mildred Pierce
Time is the only critic.
JAMES M. CAIN
The Paris Review, spring-summer 1978
Just you and me and the road. Just a couple of tramps, just a couple of gypsies, that's it, but we'll be together.
JAMES M. CAIN
The Postman Always Rings Twice