Organized crime is the dirty side of the sharp dollar.
Interpretation
Organized crime represents the unethical and often violent methods used to achieve financial gain.
In this quote, Raymond Chandler highlights the connection between organized crime and the pursuit of wealth, suggesting that such illegal activities are a corrupt and morally questionable side of capitalism. The phrase 'dirty side of the sharp dollar' implies that while wealth can be sharp and enticing, it often comes at a costβa cost represented by crime and its associated violence and corruption.
In practice
In a discussion about the effects of organized crime on society during a community meeting.
Undoubtedly the stories about them [hard-boiled detectives] had a fantastic element. Such things happened, but not so rapidly, nor to so close-knit a group of people, nor within so narrow a frame of logic. This was inevitable because the demand was for constant action; if you stopped to think you were lost. When in doubt, have a man come through a door with a gun in his hand.
There was a desert wind blowing that night. It was one of those hot dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands' necks. Anything can happen. You can even get a full glass of beer at a cocktail lounge.
When in doubt, have a man come through the door with a gun in his hand.
The flood of print has turned reading into a process of gulping rather than savoring.
If my books had been any worse, I should not have been invited to Hollywood, and if they had been any better, I should not have come.
We have the whitest kitchens and the most shining bathrooms in the world. But in the lovely white kitchen the average [person] canβt produce a meal fit to eat, and the lovely shining bathroom is mostly a receptacle for deodorants, laxatives, sleeping pills, and the products of that confidence racket called the cosmetic industry. We make the finest packages in the world, Mr Marlowe. The stuff inside is mostly junk." β
I constantly remind people that crime isn't solved by technology; it's solved by people.
Communism is the corruption of a dream of justice.
What is the society we wish to protect? Is it the society of complete surveillance for the commonwealth? Is this the wealth we seek to have in common - optimal security at the cost of maximal surveillance?
It is great wealth to a soul to live frugally with a contented mind.
It is the great privilege of poverty to be happy unenvied, to be healthful without physic, and secure without a guard; to obtain from the bounty of nature, what the great and wealthy are compelled to procure by the help of artists and attendants, of flatterers and spies.
I fully realize that no wealth or position can long endure, unless built upon truth and justice, therefore, I will engage in no transaction which does not benefit all whom it affects.
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