Raymond Chandler

Ran out of new books to read so attacked the library walls. Just flicking through the pages of the first Raymond Chandler book I picked up, my eye was caught by a passage I used to know from way back. About detectives and their manly requirements. Seems I still fit the bill? Moot point is the 'common man' reference. If he is talking in terms of numbers, then I am not the same as the majority of the blokes out there. Thank God.

"Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid. The detective must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man. He must be, to use a rather weathered phrase, a man of honor. He talks as the man of his age talks, that is, with rude wit, a lively sense of the grotesque, a disgust for sham, and a contempt for pettiness."
— The Simple Art of Murder; the words mean streets were an inspiration for the title of Martin Scorsese's film Mean Streets.