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A man may debar nonsense from his library of reason, but not from the arena of his impulses.

Rex Stout

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Rex Stout
Age: 88 †
Born: 1886
Born: December 1
Died: 1975
Died: October 27
Novelist
Radio Personality
Science Fiction Writer
Screenwriter
Writer
Noblesville
Indiana
Men
Impulses
Arena
Nonsense
Impulse
Library
May
Reason

More quotes by Rex Stout

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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.
Rex Stout
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Opinions, from experts, cost money.
Rex Stout
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The trouble with an alarm clock is that what seems sensible when you set it seems absurd when it goes off
Rex Stout
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Chili is one of the great peasant foods. It is one of the few contributions America has made to world cuisine. Eaten with corn bread, sweet onion, sour cream, it contains all five of the elements deemed essential by the sages of the Orient: sweet, sour, salty, pungent, and bitter.
Rex Stout
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Wolfe scowled at her. I could see he was torn with conflicting emotions. A female in his kitchen was an outrage. A woman criticizing his or Fritz's cooking was an insult. But corned beef hash was one of life's toughest problems, never yet solved by anyone.
Rex Stout
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Only fools and philosophers waste time on the unknowable.
Rex Stout
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A guest is a jewel on the cushion of hospitality
Rex Stout
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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.
Rex Stout
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Every book takes me from 35 to 41 days to write. I don't know why that is. I've tried to get it down to 30 or 31, depending on the length of the month, but it won't work. I don't drink while I'm writing because it fuddles my logical processes, but when I finish a book I go down to the kitchen and pour myself a big belt.
Rex Stout
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A schedule broken at will becomes a mere procession of vagaries.
Rex Stout
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Sometimes it's things that take the joy out of life, like a blowout when you're hitting sixty or a button coming off of a shirt when you're in a hurry, but usually it's people.
Rex Stout
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Measure your minds height by the shadow it casts.
Rex Stout
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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.
Rex Stout
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The constant petty behests of life permit few opportunities for major satisfactions, and when one is offered it should be seized.
Rex Stout
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I think one or two of the later Holmes stories are among the best.
Rex Stout
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MY rule is never to be rude to anyone unless you mean it.
Rex Stout
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I understand the technique of eccentricity it would be futile for a man to labor at establishing a reputation for oddity if he were ready at the slightest provocation to revert to normal action.
Rex Stout
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God made you and me, in certain respects, quite unequal, and it would be futile to try any interference with His arrangements.
Rex Stout
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Everything in a story should be credible.
Rex Stout
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It is always wiser, where there is a choice, to trust inertia. It is the greatest force in the world.
Rex Stout