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In a world that operates largely at random, coincidences are to be expected, but any one of them must always be mistrusted.

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
Largely
Expected
Must
Always
World
Coincidences
Operates
Random
Coincidence

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I still can't decide which is more fun - reading or writing.
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Measure your minds height by the shadow it casts.
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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.
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A guest is a jewel on the cushion of hospitality
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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.
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If I'm home with no chore at hand, and a package of books has come, the television set and the chess board and the unanswered mail will have to manage without me if one of the books is a detective story.
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MY rule is never to be rude to anyone unless you mean it.
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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.
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What do I believe in? Belief means faith, and there's only one damned thing in the world I have any faith in. That's the idea of American democracy, because it seems to me so obvious that that's the only sensible way to run human affairs.
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It is always wiser, where there is a choice, to trust inertia. It is the greatest force in the world.
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Opinions, from experts, cost money.
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I have a strong moral sense - by my standards.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Hemingway never grew out of adolescence. His scope and depth stayed shallow because he had no idea what women are for.
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Only fools and philosophers waste time on the unknowable.
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Nothing is more admirable than the fortitude with which millionaires tolerate the disadvantages of their wealth.
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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.
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Everything in a story should be credible.
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