The Maltese Falcon
The Maltese Falcon

Spade: I hope you're not letting yourself be influenced by the guns these pocket-edition desperadoes are waving around, because I've practiced taking guns from these boys before; so we'll have no trouble there.

The Maltese Falcon
The Maltese Falcon

Brigid O'Shaughnessy: He has a wife and three children in England.
Sam Spade: They usually do, though not always in England.

The Maltese Falcon
The Maltese Falcon

Sam Spade: [impatiently] Now, let's *talk* about the black bird.
Kasper Gutman: Let's. Mr. Spade, have you any conception of how much money can be got for that black bird?
Sam Spade: No.
Kasper Gutman: Well, sir, if I told you... If I told you *half*... you'd call me a liar.
Sam Spade:

No, not even if I thought so.

The Maltese Falcon
The Maltese Falcon

Joel Cairo: I certainly wish you would have invented a more reasonable story. I felt distinctly like an idiot repeating it.
Sam Spade: Don't worry about the story's goofiness. A sensible one would have had us all in the cooler.

The Maltese Falcon
The Maltese Falcon

Sam Spade: All we've got is that maybe you love me and maybe I love you.
Brigid O'Shaughnessy: You know whether you love me or not.
Sam Spade: Maybe I do. I'll have some rotten nights after I've sent you over, but that'll pass.

The Maltese Falcon
The Maltese Falcon

Brigid O'Shaughnessy: Help me.
Sam Spade: You won't need much of anybody's help. You're good. Chiefly your eyes, I think, and that throb you get in your voice when you say things like 'Be generous, Mr. Spade.'
Brigid O'Shaughnessy: I deserve that. But the lie was in the way I said it, not at all in what I said. It's my own fault if

you can't believe me now.
Sam Spade: Ah, now you are dangerous.

The Maltese Falcon
The Maltese Falcon

Sam Spade: Don't be too sure I'm as crooked as I'm supposed to be.

The Maltese Falcon
The Maltese Falcon

Sam Spade: If you kill me, how are you going get the bird? And if I know you can't afford to kill me, how are you going to scare me into giving it to you?
Kasper Gutman: Well, sir, there are other means of persuasion besides killing and threatening to kill.
Sam Spade: Yes, that's... That's true. But, there're none of them any good

unless the threat of death is behind them. You see what I mean? If you start something, I'll make it a matter of your having to kill me or call it off.
Kasper Gutman: That's an attitude, sir, that calls for the most delicate judgment on both sides. Because, as you know, sir, in the heat of action men are likely to forget where their best interests lie and let their emotions

carry them away.
Sam Spade: Then the trick from my angle is to make my play strong enough to tie you up, but not make you mad enough to bump me off against your better judgment.
Kasper Gutman: By gad, sir, you are a character. There's never any telling what you'll say or do next, except that it's bound to be something astonishing.

The Maltese Falcon
The Maltese Falcon

Sam Spade: Ten thousand? We were talking about a lot more money than this.
Kasper Gutman: Yes, sir, we were, but this is genuine coin of the realm. With a dollar of this, you can buy ten dollars of talk.

The Maltese Falcon
The Maltese Falcon

Wilmer Cook: Keep askin' for it and you're gonna to get it - plenty. I told you to shove off. Shove off.
Sam Spade: People lose teeth talking like that. If you want to hang around, you'll be polite.

The Maltese Falcon
The Maltese Falcon

[first title card]
Title Card: In 1539, the Knight Templars of Malta, paid tribute to Charles V of Spain, by sending him a Golden Falcon encrusted from beak to claw with rarest jewels ~~~~~ but pirates seized the galley carrying this priceless token and the fate of the Maltese Falcon remains a mystery to this day ~~~

The Maltese Falcon
The Maltese Falcon

Kasper Gutman: Well, sir, what do you suggest? We stand here and shed tears and call each other names... or shall we go to Istanbul?
Joel Cairo: Are you going?
Kasper Gutman: Seventeen years I've wanted that little item and I've been trying to get it. If we must spend another year on the quest... well, sir, it will be an additional

expenditure in time of only... five and fifteen seventeenths percent.

The Maltese Falcon
The Maltese Falcon

Kasper Gutman: Here's to plain speaking and clear understanding.

The Maltese Falcon
The Maltese Falcon

Sam Spade: You're good. You're very good.

The Maltese Falcon
The Maltese Falcon

Sam Spade: [after disarming Wilmer] This'll put you in solid with your boss.

The Maltese Falcon
The Maltese Falcon

Sam Spade: You killed Miles and you're going over for it.

The Maltese Falcon
The Maltese Falcon

Kasper Gutman: These are facts, historical facts, not schoolbook history, not Mr. Wells' history, but history nevertheless.

The Maltese Falcon
The Maltese Falcon

Sam Spade: You're a good man, sister.

The Maltese Falcon
The Maltese Falcon

Joel Cairo: I am prepared to pay five thousand dollars for the figure's return. Do you have it?
Sam Spade: No.
Joel Cairo: But if it isn't here, why did you risk serious injury to prevent my searching for it?
Sam Spade: Why should I sit around here and let people come in and stick me up?
Joel

Cairo: But certainly it is only natural that I try to save the owner such a considerable expense if possible.

The Maltese Falcon
The Maltese Falcon

Sam Spade: Here.
[hands him Wilmer's guns]
Sam Spade: You shouldn't let him go around with these on him, he might get himself hurt.
Kasper Gutman: Well, well, what's this?
Sam Spade: A crippled newsie took 'em away from him. I made him give 'em back.