Rex Stout Quotes - Page 3

Afraid? I can dodge folly without backing into fear.

The fricassee with dumplings is made by a Mrs. Miller whose husband has left her four times on account of her disposition and returned four times on account of her cooking.

Dignities are like faces; no two are the same.

War doesn't mature men; it merely pickles them in the brine of disgust and dread.

No man should tell a lie unless he is shrewd enough to recognize the time for renouncing it, if and when it comes, and knows how to renounce it gracefully.

There are two kinds of characters in all fiction, the born and the synthetic. If the writer has to ask himself questions - is he tall, is he short? - he had better quit.

To say that a man is a reasoning animal is a very different thing than to say that most of man's decisions are based on his rational process. That I don't believe at all.

I will ride my luck on occasion, but I like to pick the occasion.

I love books, food, music, sleep, people who work, heated arguments, the United States of America, and my wife and children. I dislike politicians, preachers, genteel persons, people who do not work or are on vacation, closed minds, movies, loud noises, and oiliness.

To read of a detective's daring finesse or ingenious stratagem is a rare joy.

A character who is thought-out is not born, he or she is contrived. A born character is round, a thought-out character is flat.

As between the intolerable and the merely distasteful, I must choose the latter.

The requisitions of the income tax have added greatly to the attractions of mercenary crime.

The incredible thing happens at the beginning of the story always, you notice, not the end. A Sherlock Holmes story is never a trick story.

As a professional writer of detective stories, I string along with the ballplayers. I love a ball game.

We are all vainer of our luck than of our merits.

A Dickens character to me is a theatrical projection of a character. Not that it isn't real. It's real, but in that removed sense. But Sherlock Holmes is simply there. I would be astonished if I went to 221½ B Baker Street and didn't find him.

Opinions, from experts, cost money.

Bosh. I find a rival - but no, I won't flatter myself that Tecumseh Fox would consider himself a rival of Dol Bonner - I find an eminent detective in your apartment, and that alone is enough, without adding that he is concealed in your bedroom while I am discussing my business with you.

Women don't require motives that are comprehensible to my intellectual processes.

One trouble with living beyond your deserved number of years is that there's always some reason to live another year. And I'd like to live another year so that Nixon won't be President. If he's re-elected I'll have to live another four years.

I was reminding myself of the one basic rule for experts on females: confine yourself absolutely to explaining why she did what she has already done because that will save the trouble of explaining why she didn't do what you said she would.

One of the hardest things to believe is that anyone will abandon the effort to escape a charge of murder. It is extremely important to suspend disbelief on that. If you don't, the story is spoiled.

I don't approve of open fires. You can't think, or talk or even make love in front of a fireplace. All you can do is stare at it.

Subtlety chases the obvious up a never-ending spiral and never quite catches it.