re: #132 SurferDoc

“Down these mean streets must walk a man who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid.”

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, Raymond Chandler