“In everything that can be called art there is a quality of redemption. It may be pure tragedy, if it is high tragedy, and it may be pity and irony, and it may be the raucous laughter of the strong man. But down these mean streets a man must go who is himself not mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid… The story is this man’s adventure in search of hidden truth, and it would be no adventure if it did not happen to a man fit for adventure. He has a range of awareness that startles you, bit it belongs to him by right, because it belongs to the world he lives in. If there were enough like him, the world would be a safe place to live in, without becoming too dull to be worth living in.”
– Raymond Chandler, 1944, The Saturday Review of Literature
(This post topic comes from The Daily Prompt.)