Maltese Falcon

Sam Spade:
I don't mind a reasonable amount of trouble.

Joel Cairo:
Look what you did to my shirt.

Brigid O'Shaughnessy:
I haven't lived a good life. I've been bad, worse than you could know.

Sam Spade:
You know, that's good, because if you actually were as innocent as you pretend to be, we'd never get anywhere.

Wilmer Cook:
Keep on riding me and they're gonna be picking iron out of your liver.

Sam Spade:
The cheaper the crook, the gaudier the patter, eh?

Sam Spade:
Ten thousand? We were talking about a lot more money than this.

Kasper Gutman:
Yes, sir, we were, but this is genuine coin of the realm. With a dollar of this, you can buy ten dollars of talk.

Kasper Gutman:
I couldn't be fonder of you if you were my own son. But, well, if you lose a son, its possible to get another. There's only one Maltese Falcon.

Sam Spade:
Haven't you tried to buy my loyalty with money and nothing else?

Brigid O'Shaughnessy:
What else is there I can buy you with?

Kasper Gutman:
Here's to plain speaking and clear understanding.

Spade:
When a man's partner is killed, he's supposed to do something about it. It doesn't make any difference what you thought of him. He was your partner and you're supposed to do something about it. And it happens we're in the detective business. Well, when one of your organization gets killed, it's-it's bad business to let the killer get away with it, bad all around, bad for every detective everywhere.

Spade:
We didn't believe your story, Mrs. O'Shaughnessy, we believed your 200 dollars. I mean you paid us more than if you had been telling us the truth, and enough more to make it alright.

Sam Spade:
My guess might be excellent or it might be crummy, but Mrs. Spade didn't raise any children dippy enough to make guesses in front of a district attorney, and an assistant district attorney, and a stenographer.

Sam Spade:
When you're slapped, you'll take it and like it.

Joel Cairo:
You always have a very smooth explanation...

Sam Spade:
What do you want me to do, learn to stutter?

Kasper Gutman:
I distrust a man who says "when." If he's got to be careful not to drink too much, it's because he's not to be trusted when he does.

Kasper Gutman:
I distrust a close-mouthed man. He generally picks the wrong time to talk and says the wrong things. Talking's something you can't do judiciously, unless you keep in practice. Now, sir, we'll talk if you like. I'll tell you right out, I'm a man who likes talking to a man who likes to talk.

Spade:
I hope you're not letting yourself be influenced by the guns these pocket edition desperados are waving around, because I've practiced taking guns from these boys before so we'll have no trouble there.

Joel Cairo:
You... you bungled it. You and your stupid attempt to buy it. Kemedov found out how valuable it was, no wonder we had such an easy time stealing it. You... you imbecile. You stupid fat-head you.

Sam Spade:
You killed Miles and you're going over for it.

Detective Tom Polhaus:
Heavy. What is it?

Sam Spade:
The, uh, stuff that dreams are made of.

Detective Tom Polhaus:
Huh?

Kasper Gutman:
The best goodbyes are short. Adieu.

Kasper Gutman:
By Gad, sir, you are a character. There's never any telling what you'll say or do next, except that it's bound to be something astonishing.

Sam Spade:
I hope they don't hang you, precious, by that sweet neck. Yes, angel, I'm gonna send you over. The chances are you'll get off with life. That means if you're a good girl, you'll be out in 20 years. I'll be waiting for you. If they hang you, I'll always remember you.

Kasper Gutman:
That, Mr. Spade, is the stuff history is made of - real history, not that junk H. G. Wells writes about.

Brigid O'Shaughnessy:
He has a wife and three children in England.

Sam Spade:
They usually do, though not always in England.

Brigid O'Shaughnessy:
Mr. Archer was so alive yesterday, so solid and hearty...

Sam Spade:
Stop it. He knew what he was doing. Those are the chances we take.

Brigid O'Shaughnessy:
Was he married?

Sam Spade:
Yeah, with ten thousand insurance, no children, and a wife that didn't like him.

Brigid O'Shaughnessy:
Help me.

Sam Spade:
You won't need much of anybody's help. You're good. Chiefly your eyes, I think, and that throb you get in your voice when you say things like 'Be generous, Mr. Spade.'

Brigid O'Shaughnessy:
I deserve that. But the lie was in the way I said it, not at all in what I said. It's my own fault if you can't believe me now.

Sam Spade:
Ah, now you are dangerous.

Brigid O'Shaughnessy:
I do know he always went heavily armed, and that he never went to sleep without covering the floor around his bed with crumpled newspapers, so that nobody could come silently into his room.

Sam Spade:
You picked a nice sort of a playmate.

Brigid O'Shaughnessy:
Only that sort could have helped me, if he'd been loyal.

Joel Cairo:
I am prepared to pay five thousand dollars for the figure's return. Do you have it?

Sam Spade:
No.

Joel Cairo:
But if it isn't here, why did you risk serious injury to prevent my searching for it?

Sam Spade:
Why should I sit around here and let people come in and stick me up?

Joel Cairo:
But certainly it is only natural that I try to save the owner such a considerable expense if possible.

Sam Spade:
People lose teeth talking like that. If you want to hang around, you'll be polite.

Joel Cairo:
I certainly wish you would have invented a more reasonable story. I felt distinctly like an idiot repeating it.

Sam Spade:
Don't worry about the story's goofiness. A sensible one would have had us all in the cooler.

Sam Spade:
All we've got is that maybe you love me and maybe I love you.

Brigid O'Shaughnessy:
You know whether you love me or not.

Sam Spade:
Maybe I do. I'll have some rotten nights after I've sent you over, but that'll pass.

Joel Cairo:
Might I remind you Mr. Spade that you may have the falcon, but we certainly have you.

Sam Spade:
You're a good man, sister.

Sam Spade:
Haven't you anything better to do than to keep popping in here early every morning and asking a lot of fool questions?

Lt. Dundy:
And gettin' a lot of lyin' answers!

Sam Spade:
Take it easy.

Sam Spade:
Here.

Sam Spade:
You shouldn't let him go around with these on him, he might get himself hurt.

Kasper Gutman:
Well, well, what's this?

Sam Spade:
A crippled newsie took 'em away from him. I made him give 'em back.

Joel Cairo:
No, no. Our private conversations have not been such that I am anxious to continue them. Forgive me for speaking so bluntly, but it is the truth.

Sam Spade:
You gotta convince me that you know what this is all about, that you aren't just fiddling around hoping it'll all... come out right in the end!

Kasper Gutman:
Well, sir, what do you suggest? We stand here and shed tears and call each other names... or shall we go to Istanbul?

Joel Cairo:
Are you going?

Kasper Gutman:
Seventeen years I've wanted that little item and I've been trying to get it. If we must spend another year on the quest... well, sir, it will be an additional expenditure in time of only... five and fifteen seventeenths percent.