Walter Neff quotes

View Quote It was a hot afternoon, and I can still remember the smell of honeysuckle all along that street. How could I have known that murder can sometimes smell like honeysuckle? Maybe you would have known Keyes the minute she mentioned accident insurance, but I didn't. I felt like a million.

View Quote [to a towel-clad Phyllis] The insurance ran out on the 15th. I'd hate to think of your having a smashed fender or something while you're not, uh, fully covered.

View Quote The living room was still stuffy from last night's cigars. The windows were closed and the sunshine coming in through the venetian blinds showed up the dust in the air. On the piano in a couple of fancy frames were Mr. Dietrichson and Lola, his daughter by his first wife. They had a bowl of those little red goldfish on the table behind the big Davenport. But to tell you the truth, Keyes, I wasn't a whole lot interested in goldfish right then, not in auto renewals, nor in Mr. Dietrichson and his daughter Lola. I was thinking about that dame upstairs and the way she had looked at me, and I wanted to see her again, close, without that silly staircase between us.

View Quote That's a honey of an anklet you're wearing, Mrs. Dietrichson.

View Quote [to Keyes] You're so darn conscientious you're driving yourself crazy. You wouldn't even say today's Tuesday unless you looked at the calendar. Then, you'd check to see if it was this year's or last year's calendar. Then you'd find out who'd printed the calendar and find out if their calendar checked with the World Almanac's Calendar.

View Quote So I let her have it, straight between the eyes. She didn't fool me for a minute, not this time. I knew I had ahold of a red hot poker, and the time to drop it was before it burned my hand off. I was all twisted up inside and I was still holding on to that red-hot poker. And right then it came over me that I hadn't walked out on anything at all, that the hope was too strong, that this wasn't the end between her and me. It was only the beginning.

View Quote It's just like the first time I came here, isn't it? We were talking about automobile insurance, only you were thinking about murder. And I was thinking about that anklet.

View Quote Do I laugh now, or wait 'til it gets funny?

View Quote If you had that accident policy and tried to pull a monoxide job, we've got a guy in our office named Keyes. For him, a set-up like that would just be like a slice of rare roast beef. In three minutes, he'd know it wasn't an accident. In ten minutes, you'd be sitting under the hot lights. In a half hour, you'd be signing your name to a confession...They know more tricks than a carload of monkeys. And if there's a death mixed up in it, you haven't got a prayer. They'll hang you just as sure as ten dimes will buy a dollar.

View Quote So we just sat there, and she started crying softly like the rain on the window. And we didn't say anything. Maybe she had stopped thinking about it, but I hadn't. I couldn't because it was all tied up with something I'd been thinking about for years. Since long before I ever ran into Phyllis Dietrichson. Because, you know how it is Keyes, in this business you can't sleep for trying to figure out all the tricks they could pull on you. You're like the guy behind the roulette wheel, watching the customers to make sure they don't crook the house. And then one night, you get to thinking how you could crook the house yourself. And do it smart. Because you've got that wheel right under your hands. You know every notch in it by heart. And you figure all you need is a plant out front, a shill to put down the bet. And suddenly the doorbell rings and the whole setup is right there in the room with ya. (pause) Look, Keyes, I'm not trying to whitewash myself. I fought it, only I guess I didn't fight it hard enough. The stakes were $50,000 dollars, but they were the life of a man too, a man who'd never done me any dirt except he was married to a woman he didn't care anything about. And I did.

View Quote I was trying to think with your brains, Keyes, 'cause I wanted all the answers ready for all the, all the questions you were gonna spring as soon as Dietrichson was dead.

View Quote After that, a full week went by and I didn't see her once. I tried to keep my mind off her and off the whole idea. I kept telling myself that maybe those Fates they say watch over ya had gotten together and broken his leg to give me a way out.

View Quote That was all there was to it. Nothing had slipped, nothing had been overlooked, there was nothing to give us away. And yet, Keyes, as I was walking down the street to the drugstore, suddenly it came over me that everything would go wrong. It sounds crazy, Keyes, but it's true, so help me. I couldn't hear my own footsteps. It was the walk of a dead man.

View Quote That was the longest night I ever lived through, Keyes, and the next day was worse when the story broke in the papers and they started talking about it at the office. And the day after that when you started digging into it. I kept my hands in my pockets because I thought they were shaking. I put on dark glasses so people couldn't see my eyes. Then I took them off again so they wouldn't get to wondering why I wore them. I tried to hold myself together but I could feel my nerves pulling me to pieces.

View Quote Office memorandum. 'Walter Neff to Barton Keyes, Claims Manager, Los Angeles, July 16, 1938. Dear Keyes: I suppose you'll call this a confession when you hear it. Well, I don't like the word 'confession.' I just want to set you right about something you couldn't see because it was smack up against your nose. You think you're such a hot potato as a Claims Manager; such a wolf on a phony claim. Maybe you are. But let's take a look at that Dietrichson claim, Accident and Double Indemnity. You were pretty good in there for a while, Keyes. You said it wasn't an accident. Check. You said it wasn't suicide. Check. You said it was murder. Check. You thought you had it cold, didn't you? All wrapped up in tissue paper with pink ribbons around it. It was perfect - except it wasn't, because you made one mistake. Just one little mistake. When it came to picking the killer, you picked the wrong guy. You want to know who killed Dietrichson? Hold tight to that cheap cigar of yours, Keyes. I killed Dietrichson - me, Walter Neff, insurance salesman, 35 years old, unmarried, no visible scars... [He glances down at his shoulder wound.] - until a while ago, that is. Yes, I killed him. I killed him for money and for a woman. I didn't get the money and I didn't get the woman. Pretty, isn't it?'