'convey my compliments to the purist who reads your proofs and tell him or her that I write in a sort of broken-down patois which is something like the way a swiss-waiter talks, and that when I split an infinitive, god damn it, I split it so it will remain split, and when I interrupt the velvety smoothness of my more or less literate syntax with a few sudden words of barroom vernacular, this is done with the eyes wide open and the mind relaxed and attentive. the method may not be perfect, but it is all I have.'
_ raymond chandler