The Big Sleep
Critique • Quotes • Philip Marlowe at the movies
First editionFirst publication
1939
Literary form
Novel
Genres
Literary, crime, mystery
Writing language
English
Author's country
United States
Length
Approx. 72,000 words
Notable lines
It was about eleven o'clock in the morning, mid-October, with the sun not shining and a look of hard wet rain in the clearness of the foothills. I was wearing my powder-blue suit, with dark blue shirt, tie and display handkerchief, black brogues, black wool socks with dark blue clocks on them. I was neat, clean, shaved and sober, and I didn't care who knew it. I was everything the well-dressed detective ought to be. I was calling on four million dollars.
— First lines
Neither of the two people in the room paid any attention to the way I came in, although only one of them was dead.
"I don't mind if you don't like my manners. They're pretty bad. I grieve over them during the long winter evenings."
"Such a nice escort, Mr. Cobb. So attentive. You should see him sober. I should see him sober. Somebody should see him sober. I mean, just for the record. So it could become a part of history, that brief flashing moment, soon buried in time, but never forgotten—when Larry Cobb was sober."
His heart was a brief, uncertain murmur. His thoughts were as gray as ashes. And in a little while he too...would be sleeping the big sleep.
On the way downtown I stopped at a bar and had a couple of double Scotches. They didn't do me any good. All they did was make me think of Silver Wig, and I never saw her again.
— Last lines
Critique • Quotes • Philip Marlowe at the movies
