"Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid, The ILLUSTRATOR... must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man. He must be, to use a rather weathered phrase, a man of honor... He talks as the man of his age talks, that is, with rude wit, a lively sense of the grotesque, a disgust for sham, and a contempt for pettiness. He is cynical yet idealistic, romantic yet full of despair, an essentially gentle man moving across the landscape of beauty, decadence and violence."
(Apologies to Raymond Chandler)