She grinned at me. 'You got types?' 'Only you darling - lanky brunettes with wicked jaws.
Dashiell HammettRead
We didn't exactly believe your story.' Then --?' 'We believed your two hundred dollars.' 'You mean --' She seemed not to know what he meant. 'I mean that you paid us more than if you'd been telling the truth,' he explained blandly, 'and enough more to make it all right.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Sometimes actions speak louder than words, and the truth may be secondary to the value of tangible rewards.
This quote by Dashiell Hammett suggests that the weight of one's actions, especially in terms of financial transactions, can often outweigh the truthfulness of their words. It implies that in certain situations, people may prioritize monetary gain over sincerity, and the implications of such a mindset can reveal deeper philosophical insights about trust and motives in human interactions.
Themes
TruthMoneyActionDeceptionValue
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about the importance of honesty versus financial gain.
More from Dashiell Hammett
All quotes →What I try to do is write a story about a detective rather than a detective story. Keeping the reader fooled until the last, possible moment is a good trick and I usually try to play it, but I can't attach more than secondary importance to it. The puzzle isn't so interesting to me as the behavior of the detective attacking it.
Dashiell HammettRead
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.
Dashiell HammettRead
The people who lie the most are nearly always the clumsiest at it, and they're easier to fool with lies than most people, too. You'd think they'd be on the look-out for lies, but they seem to be the very ones that will believe almost anything at all.
Dashiell HammettRead
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