The above quotations are credited to the late, great and reprobate David Goodis. The socially inept, racially liberal and sexually disturbed Goodis wrote stories supercharged by lust, driven by love and governed by an unalienable belief that nobody once bitten by existential tragedy can ever escape the gutter. To the delight of his fans, Goodis resigned himself to despondent fates with almost inappropriately vibrant imagery. Here’s hoping these quotes sink their anthropomorphic claws into more lucky readers.

The novels of David Goodis:

• Retreat From Oblivion (NY: Dutton, 1939)
• Dark Passage (NY: Messner, 1946)
• Nightfall/The Dark Chase (NY: Messner, 1948)
• Behold This Woman (NY: Appleton, 1947)
• Of Missing Persons (NY: Morrow, 1950)
• Cassidy’s Girl (NY: Fawcett, 1951)
• Of Tender Sin (NY: Fawcett, 1952)
• Street of the Lost (NY: Fawcett, 1952)
• The Burglar (NY: Lion, 1953)
• The Moon in the Gutter (NY: Fawcett, 1953)
• Black Friday (NY: Lion, 1954)
• The Blonde on the Street Corner (NY: Lion, 1954)
• Street of No Return (NY: Fawcett, 1954)
• The Wounded and the Slain (NY: Fawcett, 1955)
• Down There/Shoot the Piano Player (NY: Fawcett, 1956)
• Fire in the Flesh (NY: Fawcett, 1957)
• Night Squad (NY: Fawcett, 1961)
• Somebody’s Done For (NY: Banner, 1967)

Personal Note:

After I graduated college, after having spent my last semester studying films noir, I fell down the rabbit hole that is American crime fiction, as a filmgeek, as a reader, and as a writer. I began reading so much Chandler, Hammett, Woolrich, Cain, and Thompson that there was almost no room for me to appreciate anything else, and while I still have a soft spot for that kind of fiction, I no longer obsess over the genre quite as much as I used to.

The exception is David Goodis. My favorite American crime novelist is the only one I continue to read to this day, when I get my hands on one of his out-of-print masterpieces, and due to his lack of visibility in modern collective conscious, I decided to build this website as a kind of tribute. I love so many quotes from Goodis’ bibliography that I began collecting them like baseball cards. I took a two-day class on web design and my first project, to test out my new knowledge, was Goodis is Good.

While my web design is limited by my lack of knowledge in anything but HTML and CSS, I’ve put together enough beginner’s javascript to randomize a Goodis quote upon page load, and that’s good enough (for now). Over time I hope to continue to add to the list of quotes that will show up here, which, in the end, is just another excuse to keep reading my favorite crime writer, and one of my favorite writers period.

- Zach