The Maltese Falcon quotes

View Quote Spade: If you kill me, how are you gonna get the bird? And if I know you can't afford to kill me, how are you gonna scare me into giving it to you?
Gutman: Well, sir, there are other means of persuasion besides killing and threatening to kill.
Spade: Yes, that's, that's true. But - they're none of 'em any good unless the threat of death is behind them - do 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.
Gutman: [chuckling] That's an attitude, sir, that calls for the most delicate judgment on both sides. 'Cause as you know, sir, in the heat of action, men are likely to forget where their best interests lie and that their emotions carry them away.
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.
Gutman: By gad, sir, you are a character.

View Quote [The falcon has turned out to be a fake.] Spade: [to Brigid] All right, you've had your little joke, now tell us about it.
Brigid: No, Sam! No! That's the one I got from Kemidov, I swear it!
Cairo: [to Gutman] You. It's you who bungled it. You and your stupid attempt to buy it! Kemidov found out how valuable it was. No wonder we had such an easy time stealing it! You, you imbecile! You bloated idiot! You stupid fathead, you! [sobbing]

View Quote Brigid: Don't, Sam. Don't say it even in fun. Ha, ha, ha. Oh, I was frightened for a minute. I really thought...You do such wild and unpredictable things.
Spade: Don't be silly. You're taking the fall.
Brigid: You've been playing with me. Just pretending you care to trap me like this. You didn't care at all. You don't love me!
Spade: I won't play the sap for you!
Brigid: Oh you know it's not like that. You can't say that.
Spade: Do you ever fight square with me for half an hour at a stretch since I've known you?
Brigid: You know down deep in your heart and in spite of anything I've done I love you.
Spade: I don't care who loves who!! I won't play the sap for you. I won't walk in Thursby's - and I don't know how many other's - footsteps. You killed Miles and you're going over for it.
Brigid: How can you do this to me, Sam? Surely, Mr. Archer wasn't so much to you as... [crying]

View Quote Brigid: You know whether you love me or not.
Spade: Maybe I do. Well, I'll have some rotten nights after I've sent you over, but that will pass. If all I've said doesn't mean anything to you, then forget it and we'll make it just this: I won't because all of me wants to, regardless of consequences, and because you counted on that with me the same as you counted on that with all the others.

View Quote Polhaus: [lifting the fake falcon] It's heavy. What is it?
Spade: The, uh, stuff that dreams are made of. Note: bolded line is ranked #14 in the American Film Institute's list of the top 100 movie quotations in American cinema.