Why Raymond Chandler is better than you

From The Big Sleep:
-I was neat, clean, shaved and sober, and I didn’t care who knew it
-I work at it lady. I don’t play at it
-Shake your business up and pour it.
-The general spoke again, slowly, using his strength as carefully as an out-of work showgirl uses her last good pair of stockings.
-Neither of the two people in the room paid any attention to how I came in, although only one of them was dead.
And, not Phillip Marlowe, but a lady who sounds just like us, but better- You should see him sober. I should see him sober. Somebody should see him sober. I mean, just for the record.