Literary Birthday – 27 May – Dashiell Hammett

Dashiell Hammett was born 27 May 1894, and died 10 January 1961.

Five Quotes

I’ve been as bad an influence on American literature as anyone I can think of.
If you have a story that seems worth telling, and you think you can tell it worthily, then the thing for you to do is to tell it, regardless of whether it has to do with sex, sailors, or mounted policemen.
I found I was repeating myself. It is the beginning of the end when you discover you have style.
When you write, you want fame, fortune and personal satisfaction. You want to write what you want to write and feel it’s good, and you want this to go on for hundreds of years. You’re not likely ever to get all these things, and you’re not likely to give up writing and commit suicide if you don’t, but that is — and should be — your goal. Anything else is kind of piddling.
What I try to do is to write a story about a detective rather than a detective story.

Read: Dashiel Hammett’s 24 Rules For Detective Writers

Dashiell Hammett was an American author and political activist. He wrote hard-boiled detective novels, short stories, and screenplays. He is well known for creating Sam Spade from The Maltese Falcon, Nick and Nora Charles from The Thin Man. Hammett is now regarded as one of the finest mystery writers of all time.