Life & Wisdom Quote by Raymond Chandler

Chandler’s line reads like a self-help maxim, but coming from the patron saint of hardboiled fatalism it lands with a drier, sharper edge. He’s not selling optimism; he’s dissecting performance the way Philip Marlowe dissects alibis: by separating what sounds impressive from what actually produces results.

The triad is a small machine. “Ability” is framed as potential, almost inert, the gun on the table. “Motivation” is the trigger-pull, the choice to act rather than brood. Then he saves the real verdict for last: “Attitude determines how well you do it.” That pivot matters. Chandler doesn’t pretend talent is rare; he implies it’s common. What’s scarce is the internal weather that decides whether your action is clean, disciplined, and finished or sloppy, compromised, and abandoned. “Attitude” here isn’t sunny vibes; it’s stance under pressure: the willingness to endure boredom, ego, rejection, and the slow grind between inspiration and a completed page.

Context sharpens the subtext. Chandler came to fiction late, wrote through alcoholism, money trouble, and an industry that treated writers as disposable. His best work is fueled by disgust, humor, and a code that keeps functioning even when the world doesn’t deserve it. So the quote quietly argues for professionalism as a moral posture: capability is cheap, wanting is unstable, but a chosen attitude - stubborn, precise, unsentimental - is what turns effort into craft. It’s a reminder that “doing” is not the same as “doing well,” and that excellence is less a gift than a kind of controlled defiance.