Man Solo

“Babette looked too good for the place tonight, but then goodness is only relative after all ("Steps Going Up" aka "Guillotine" aka "Men Must Die")”
― Cornell Woolrich, The Ten Faces of Cornell Woolrich: An Inner Sanctum Collection of Novelettes and Short Stories

“Impropriety is the soul of wit.”
― W. Somerset Maugham, The Moon and Sixpence

“Like art, love, and pornography, noir is hard to define, but you know it when you see it. For the purposes of the book and my longtime working understanding and definition of it, noir stories are bleak, existential, alienated, pessimistic tales about losers--people who are so morally challenged that they cannot help but bring about their own ruin.”
― Otto Penzler, The Best American Noir of the Century

“I believe, whoever sees the Grail will find it agreeable. It charms all those of this land, they find it pleasant and agreeable; those who are able to remain with it and can bear its presence, when they see it they feel delight, they are as happy as a fish when a man holds it in his hand, and it can escape from his hand and return to swimming unconfined in the water.”
― Robert de Boron, Joseph of Arimathea