Top 100 Noir's Quotes
#1. Where are we? (Jericho)
Noir's happy place. It's where he brings the beings he wants to play with. (Asmodeus)
Punish. (Jericho)
You say ta-mah-to. I say to-mah-to. (Asmodeus)
Sherrilyn Kenyon
#2. Maybe they were all either pimps or whores. Maybe it was life's classifying principle, maybe I had seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker.
Robert B. Parker
#3. I so love the smell of hatred and revenge. It's the headiest of concoctions. (Noir)
I personally feel that way toward blood. No better smell in the universe than when it's combined with the aroma of those fearing death. (Jericho)
Sherrilyn Kenyon
#4. I like two men, two guns that kind of thing, I don't do subtle.
C.S. Boag
#5. I wouldn't presume to define noir - if we could define it, we wouldn't need to use a French word for it - but it seems to me it's more a way of looking at the world than what one sees.
Lawrence Block
#7. I decided to coin the term 'cosy crime noir' for Brighton Belle. That is 'cosy crime' for today's sensibilities because there is that slightly edgy element to it.
Sara Sheridan
#8. There is something missing in a lot of digital filmmaking, something I call "poetic reality." That's something you see played out in film noir, where the technique establishes the mood.
Vilmos Zsigmond
#9. With a genre like film noir, everyone has these assumptions and expectations. And once all of those things are in place, that's when you can really start to twist it about and mess around with it.
Lana Wachowski
#10. Nights like this," someone had told him, not so long ago, "feel like the world's waiting for something." He was sure, in hindsight, that on that night on a back step with a shared bottle of grocery store Pinot Noir, the girl beside him had wanted the two of them to be that something special.
Lauren Gilley
#11. We saved the lives of a whole family that night. Children, parents, uncles, aunts, grandparents, all sailed to safety in Sweden inside a little fisherman's boat."
Johannes aka 'BB'
The Informer by Steen Langstrup
Steen Langstrup
#12. I preyed on this sort of thing, discontentment, a clash of passions among the rivals, and the zealots. Open sores opened secrets. That's how I roll."
Jackson Guild, The Trinity Conspiracy, Betrayal at Black Mesa
Jeff Shear
#13. That's what noir feels like to me. It feels like some kind of recurring dream, with very strong archetypes operating. You know, the guilty girl being pursued, falling, all kinds of stuff that we see in our dreams all the time.
Brian De Palma
#14. Blade Runner's just a noir at the end of the day. Rosemary's Baby is about the fear of having a child and how that gets in the way of a romantic relationship. Or whatever it is, and you add that extra element that blows your mind apart.
James Ponsoldt
#15. There's something magnetic about Jackson, and I can't even put my finger on it. He's unbelievably good looking, sure, but I've met good-looking men before. Is it the way that he's beyond confident, like he knows you're going to wind up in bed with him, it's just a matter of when?
Roxie Noir
#17. Sandy's face was very close to mine in the crowded room. She had a wide mouth and a lot of teeth. She had turned in her seat so that she had one thigh on each side of my leg. Her chest was against my arm. In another minute we wouldn't have to go anywhere to have sex.
Robert B. Parker
#18. Lionel Essrog, the twitching, barking, gabbling narrator of Jonathan Lethem's new novel, 'Motherless Brooklyn,' is no movie-of-the-week novelty grafted onto a noir mystery. Maybe his Tourette's is a gimmick, but it's a gimmick with depth, with soul.
Gary Krist
#19. Old film-noir movies. There's something comforting about watching black-and-white movies, and hearing this kind of music just puts me in a fantasy world. It's a really great escape for me.
Petra Haden
#20. I'm into clothes, but in a way that's related to wanting to walk into a film noir movie. You know, I love to go to vintage stores, but mostly it's stuff that I don't have anywhere to wear ... I don't have the life that goes with the clothes.
Maureen Dowd
#21. Pinot noir is the ultimate wine to have at the table. It's a white wine masquerading as red ... [while] chardonnay is a red masquerading as a white.
Kevin Zraly
#22. In America, they have specialist mystery book stores with whole sections devoted to cat mysteries, golf mysteries, quilting mysteries. It's a hugely broad genre from the darkest noir to tales of a 19th-century vet who solves crimes, thanks to his talking cat.
Mark Billingham
#23. I've been thinking of doing a sci-fi thriller or a sci-fi noir, if that's possible.
Kim Ji-woon
#24. In near panic, I craned my neck to gaze over the cabin's roofline a bursting fireball.
Ed Lynskey
#25. It's not always to the benefit of the story to have it so preordained.
Daniel Woodrell
#26. It's a noir world. Unfair things happen.
Rob Thomas
#27. IT TOOK a conscious effort for Tallow to keep his hand off his gun as he walked up the apartment building's stairs. There was no threat here. He told himself that with every step. But every step held memory.
Warren Ellis
#28. And he's alone there, with the unconscious pilot lying a little way off for company, and some other guy he's never even seen, only spoken to over the radio.
He wants to sleep so badly - dying they call it - and he can't. Something's bothering him to keep him awake. ("Jane Brown's Body")
Cornell Woolrich
#30. I think there are specific times where film noir is a natural concomitant of the mood. When there's insecurity, collapse of financial systems - that's where film noir always hits fertile ground.
Werner Herzog
#31. Quote taken from Chapter 1:
That's the idea. Listen, Frank, this one is different. She's a keeper." He let that part gel in me. "Get your head screwed on straight and move to Richmond. You hate it living in Pelham.
Ed Lynskey
#32. It's time to end the brain drain and move to brain gain. It's time for a great mind of Nigeria to return home. You're the mind we need, Doctor.
Deji Olukotun
#33. I'm working on something that's not yet novel-shaped but is something of a film-noir-flavored 'Alice in Wonderland.' It will also very likely be a single volume story and not the start of a series.
Erin Morgenstern
#34. Simon's brain tried to comprehend the situation. 'Was an international supermodel really holding Doc Gutson, leader of the infamous Bloodworth Gang, captive?
Clare Havens
#35. Let's just agree that I make my own decisions, and I will give you the respect you earn. Stop bossing me around. Also, stop holding my hand. Got it?
D.R. Graham
#36. A diamond wedding ring, you say?"
I studied his face. Was he putting me on? He looked earnest. "As any guy would expect, a diamond is what she's after," I said. "Did you hold out hope you'd get by for anything less?
Ed Lynskey
#37. Drawing Dead is a brilliant noir from one of Australia's most exciting new novelists.
Adrian McKinty
#38. Going back to the noir fiction of the 30s, 40s and 50s. It's very contemporary.
Jeff Goldblum
#39. [on Springsteen's "Stolen Car":] A kind of mystical film noir, written by Kafka and shot by Polanski.
Adam Sweeting
#40. Robert Pattinson has the face of a film-noir dupe. It's a face that is searching and open and kind. It's a face that a certain type of woman might want to fool because, in its intensely old-fashioned kindness, the face says, I love you. Fool me.
Wesley Morris
#41. One definition of noir is where a not-so-good man or woman tries to touch something good - and fails.
S.J. Rozan
#42. I guess what's most surprised me in most of the reviews is that they don't seem to get the noir story in the dream sequence, so they analyze it like a straight noir movie.
Brian De Palma
#43. There were some things that I found I really enjoyed singing about; like, on the title track, there's this film-noir character of a woman who's sort of losing it in a room.
Diana Krall
#44. The lady in the liquor store sold me a fifth of whiskey and the landlord's name without taking her eyes off the book she was reading.
Andrew Cotto
#45. There's a contradiction in your thinking," I said. "If I took your dirty money, you wouldn't be able to trust my honesty.
Ross Macdonald
#46. And Quirk's a captain now," he said.
"Captain Quirk?"
The motorcycle cop grinned.
"Captain Quirk," he said.
Robert B. Parker
#47. So that's the way you scientific detectives work. My god! for a fat, middle-aged, hard-boiled, pig-headed guy, you've got the vaguest way of doing things I ever heard of.
Dashiell Hammett
#48. The noir hero is a knight in blood caked armor. He's dirty and he does his best to deny the fact that he's a hero the whole time.
Frank Miller
#49. My feet crunched over dry hickory leaves. Wood rangers had stapled up Smokey Bear ("Only You Can Prevent Forest Fires!") signs along the state roads. One cigarette butt flicked out a passing car window and there'd be real hell to pay.
Ed Lynskey
#50. Doom. You recognize Doom easily. It's a feeling and a taste, and it's black, and it's very heavy. It comes down over your head, and wraps tentacles around you, and sinks long dirty fingernails into your heart. It has a stink of burning garbage.
Gil Brewer
#51. Film noir has a mood that everyone can feel. It's people in trouble, at night, with a little bit of wind and the right kind of music. It's a beautiful thing.
David Lynch
#52. I had a funny feeling as I saw the house disappear, as though I had written a poem and it was very good and I had lost it and would never remember it again.
Raymond Chandler
#53. You do know I'm not psychic, right?'
Dash looked down at her. 'Joy...you do know that normal people don't see ghosts, right?
Amy Andrews
#54. Maya, Indian goddess of illusions. Siren of shipwrecked sailors. If only you lactated Pinot Noir, you'd be perfect.
Rex Pickett
#55. My free hand reached for something to hold on to, and closed on liquid nothing.
Ross Macdonald
#56. No viticultural region in America has demonstrated as much progress in quality and potential for greatness as ... the Santa Barbara region, where the Burgundian varietals Chardonnay and Pinot Noir are planted in its cooler climates.
Robert M. Parker Jr.
#57. Either you're going to shoot us or you're not. The ball always lands on red or black, never both.
V. Alexander
#58. It's raining in Washington tonight. Plump, warm summer rain that covers the sidewalks with leopard spots. Downtown, elderly ladies carry their houseplants out to set them on the fire-escapes, as if they were infirm relatives or Boy Kings. I like that.
Alan Moore
#59. He looked as if he'd got a lot of pleasure out of going ten rounds with your grandmother and making sure she went the whole distance.
Richard Brautigan
#60. She's dead. So is your fat pansy. You can be dead, too, if you want.
Richard Stark
#61. You're a crime fiction writer if...The injustices of this world boil your blood. You become a fucking supernova. So you write.
Verge Le Noir
#62. In Greek tragedy, they fall from great heights. In noir, they fall from the curb.
Dennis Lehane
#63. That pistol I gave you is a piece of crap. You can't hit anything with it, not at that distance."
Staring at her with tears in his blinking eyes, he says, "I did."
Conversation between Alis K and Willy
The Informer
Steen Langstrup
#64. It's hard to say goodbye for good at any time or any place. It's harder still to say it through a meshed wire. It crisscrossed his face into little diagonals, gave me only little broken-up molecules of it at a time. It stenciled a cold, rigid frame around every kiss.
Cornell Woolrich
#65. The only thing altruism will get you here is a boot stomping on your head.
Henry Mosquera
#66. As a genre, the noir of post-World War II was based on characters who were weak or repellent, bound to let down us and themselves.
Steve Erickson
#67. I've been embracing the red lip and just wearing it every day, not just for going out. And I get so many compliments on it. I love the Julie Hewett Rouge Noir: it's sort of a forties red.
Stephanie March
#68. Candy nodded absently.
"Okay," she said. "What shall I wear?"
"A gun," I said.
Robert B. Parker
#69. You ever f**k Susan here?" she said, her face almost touching mine.
"I'm impressed," I said. "The question is intrusive, annoying, coarse, and voyeuristic. That's quite a lot to get into a simple question.
Robert B. Parker
#70. The digital sunset always looks better than the real thing, always. Because a sunset generated by the basic package of yellow sun and blue sky is unreliable. Today it may be stunning, hypnotic. Tomorrow it may be lifeless and dull, a white sky scorched with yellow. Tomorrow the sky will be velvet.
Will Christopher Baer
#71. Sweetly, albeit hoarsely and with a burr, the girl started singing something scarcely comprehensible, but, judging by the women's faces in the stalls, very seductive:
Guerlain, Chanel no 5, Mitsuko, Narcissus noir, evening dresses, cocktail dresses..
Mikhail Bulgakov
#72. This is the Rock, sweetheart," the owner added. "There's no tragedy you can't profit from.
Henry Mosquera
#73. [She] had a habit of putting things in that way, as though she had accidently set your house on fire and had no choice now but to stand back and watch it burn.
Vu Tran
#74. You and I are black and white - a film noir, filled with gestures, poignant and tender
John Geddes
#75. Every novel presents a slice of life. A noir policier for example presents one slice, one that perhaps addresses social dysfunction or some sort of pathology, while mine present a slice that is more upbeat and affirmative.
Alexander McCall Smith
#76. You and Galileo," I said.
"Didn't he throw his balls off the leaning tower?" Quirk Said.
Robert B. Parker
#77. Noir is dead for me because historically, I think it's a simple view. I've taken it as far as it can go. I think I've expanded on it a great deal, taken it further than any other American novelist.
James Ellroy
#78. The finest thing in the world is knowing how to belong to oneself.
Michel de Montaigne
Laurie Stevens
#79. Taking my drink, I moved around the bar to her. Her smile was a little crooked as I sat down. I guessed it had been a wet night for platinum blondes.
Michael McCretton
#80. I rode a streetcar to the edge of the city limits, then I started to walk, swinging the old thumb whenever I saw a car coming.
Jim Thompson
#81. Just the night before, a puma's howl had set a chill at my spine and, man, life didn't get any richer than that.
Ed Lynskey
#82. I got into reading a lot of noir and a lot of thrillers as well, and I really admired the plotting about those and the way that they can surprise you. And obviously to surprise people and to have twists in the tale, you have to plan quite carefully.
Joe Abercrombie
#83. The old man had been tanned by the light of too many beer signs, and it just goes to show that you can't live on three packs of Chesterfields and a fifth of bourbon a day without starting to drift far too fuckin' wide in the turns.
Daniel Woodrell
#84. That was certainly true the first time, when I did Body Heat, the first movie that I directed. I was looking for a vessel to tell a certain kind of story, and I was a huge fan of Film Noir, and what I liked about it was that it was so extreme in style.
Lawrence Kasdan
#85. Winter was gray and mean upon the city and every night was a package of cold bleak hours, like the hours in a cell that had no door.
David Goodis
#86. Billy Wilder is really is a heavy influence on Bound. We felt that film noir was a genre where you could create a really contained story. We wanted to be on a set as much as we could to get the kind of style level we were looking for.
Lana Wachowski
#87. The phone rang. Softly, in actuality, yet it seemed loud and ominous, as phones do at night in dark hotel rooms.
Jim Thompson
#88. There are criminals everywhere these days, you know. One might end up missing the police! Who would have thought that possible?
The Maid
The Informer by Steen Langtrup
Steen Langstrup
#89. Maybe these dreams of ours just floats away. Here we go again ... changin' face.
Randolph Randy Camp
#90. Now take it easy. This is a gun I have at your back. Don't you feel it?"
I felt it. I took it easy.
Ross Macdonald
#91. There are a few rules in investigations, and one is to never cringe at the person's appearance that you're about to pump for info.
Ruth Bainbridge
#92. Because I love you," I said. "Because you are in my life like the music at the edge of silence.
Robert B. Parker
#93. Mysteries include so many things: the noir novel, espionage novel, private eye novels, thrillers, police procedurals. But the pure detective story is where there's a detective and a criminal who's committed a murder and leaves clues for the detective and the careful reader to find.
Otto Penzler
#94. Jack ordered a bottle of pinot noir, and they perused the menu while they chatted. "So you were at Georgetown." Melanie said it as a statement.
Tom Clancy
#95. Shopping is never over," Susan said. "It is merely suspended.
Robert B. Parker
#96. And I've met a very wonderful woman," I said.
"They're all wonderful," Haller said.
"Well, many of them," I said.
"I love them," Haller said. "The way they talk, how they smell, the way they touch their hair, everything."
"I know," I said.
Robert B. Parker
#97. Foreign food isn't really my thing. I tasted whale once, and I was sick for a week.
Steen Langstrup
#98. One of the crazies moved into the cone of light beneath a streetlight. It was a black man, high-stepping and making jerking movements with his arms. He made a crisp turn and began moving back into the darkness. He was a trombone player in a matching band in a world somewhere else.
Michael Connelly
#99. I think a film noir demands a beginning and an end.
Claire Denis
#100. A convoluted noir infused extravaganza clogged with humans but also a bizarre cluster of unique creatures and provocative human chimeras customized via genetic manipulation and body augmentation, a reverie of alluring cultural ferment and cyberdelic imagery making a grand display
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