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.
Interpretation
This quote encourages individuals to share their stories, no matter the subject, if they believe they can do so effectively.
Dashiell Hammett's quote emphasizes the importance of storytelling, suggesting that anyone who feels their narrative is significant should share it, irrespective of its content. The mention of various topics like sex, sailors, and mounted policemen illustrates that all stories, regardless of their nature, can have value when told with sincerity and skill.
In practice
A writer might use this quote at a workshop to encourage participants to share their personal experiences.
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.
She grinned at me. 'You got types?' 'Only you darling - lanky brunettes with wicked jaws.
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.
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.
Musicians want to be the loud voice for so many quiet hearts.
Hip-hop is still cool at a party. But to me, hip-hop has never been strictly a party; it is also there to elevate consciousness.
No art is less spontaneous than mine. What I do is the result of reflection and the study of the great masters.
Music is the weapon. Music is the weapon of the future.
I used to imagine that making it in music - really making it in music - is if you're an old man going by a schoolyard and you hear children singing your songs, playing jump-rope, or on the swings. That's the ultimate. You're in the culture.
I am my own experiment. I am my own work of art.
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