Revel in other people's words

 Michael Chandos

I love quotations. I have several books of quotes, many of them too dry to live, and computer files of quotes stolen from readings. I also have an old ledger book to jot them down in. Sometimes, thought-provoking quotes are better handwritten. They provoke images and concepts, which is where I start many of my stories. I have built story starters from them, a page or two to capture the image in my head generated by the "famous words", sometimes just a paragraph. Those are collected in a folder and I spend coffee cups of time wandering through them from time to time to see who volunteers to be expanded. 

I like crime, detection, suspense, colorful characters, betrayal, cheating, and stressful story lines. Mysteries and SF, too, for that matter. I'm not often a Category-writer. I like colorful scenes told with just the right amount of words. Grinding plots that force characters to live and struggle in the story. My quote choices reflect that.

Hemingway: "Everyman has two deaths, when he is buried in the ground, and the last time someone says his name."  I sensed that in Poet's Corner at Westminster Cathedral. Five hundred years after his death and Shakespeare's name is known worldwide. Willy Shakespeare will live forever (apologies to Oxfordians).

William Gibson: "The US one-hundred-dollar bill is the world currency for bad shit." Very true. As an intelligence officer and later as a PI, news stories about world crime almost always involve the hundred-dollar bill. No matter where you are in the world, if you get in a tight situation, a hundred-dollar bill will generate action. No, not a 20 or a 50. A crisp 100 can open doors and help you find new friends. Just don't wave more than one around within the view of many bad guys.

"What's good for the bad is bad for the good." The baseline for criminal doings.

"Reading gives us someplace to go when we have to stay where we are."  My sacred promise to my readers."

"TAKE OUT can mean dating, food, or murder." "People hate their enemies, but they kill their families and friends." "Halloween is a perfect time to cover up a murder." "Hell is a Heaven to bad guys." "Beware the fat man in a skinny land." "Can't use a saint to catch a sinner." Crime novel, anyone?

"The hurt and evil people do to each other are an injury and a disease. That's why I act. I'm a medic and a nurse. I heal injuries and treat diseases." This quote is from an early American NOIR PI story, but, damn me, I can't remember the source. John Carrol Daly, William Gault, Marjorie Stoneman Douglas perhaps.

Lee Child: "My books aren't about the detectives working on the crime, but the crime working on the detectives." The POV I try to follow.

"Beware of the older man in a profession where most men die young." A hitman, perhaps?

"He came in last place in the human race."

From the First 48, the best true crime show on TV: "The first thing you learn in homicide is that the only thing that will cover the smell of a homicide is a cigar."

Dennis Lehane: "In high fiction, the hero falls from the sky. In noir, he falls from the curb."

From Pat Novak For Hire: "You live in the shadowlands between good and evil without a preference for either end." 

Contrast Novak: "She said she was 40. She had to be older because you can't get that ugly in 40 years." with Chandler: “From 30 feet away she looked like a lot of class. From 10 feet away she looked like something made up to be seen from 30 feet away.”

Did you get any images, a brief flash? Sometimes the words from other writers flash an entire scene in my head. I've written short stories around a flashed image. The typing seems so inadequate. Maybe later when all we have to do is wire the image from the author to the reader.