Quote

The only two kinds of books could earn an American writer a living are cookbooks and detective novels.

Rex Stout

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Rex Stout
Age: 88 †
Born: 1886
Born: December 1
Died: 1975
Died: October 27
Novelist
Radio Personality
Science Fiction Writer
Screenwriter
Writer
Noblesville
Indiana
Book
Novels
Writing
Kinds
Kind
Writer
Novel
Books
Cookbook
American
Detective
Living
Detectives
Two
Earn

More quotes by Rex Stout

Image
Women don't require motives that are comprehensible to my intellectual processes.
Rex Stout
Image
A man may debar nonsense from his library of reason, but not from the arena of his impulses.
Rex Stout
Image
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.
Rex Stout
Image
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
Image
The requisitions of the income tax have added greatly to the attractions of mercenary crime.
Rex Stout
Image
Man's brain, enlarged fortuitously, invented words in an ambitious attempt to learn how to think, only to have them usurped by his emotions. But we still try.
Rex Stout
Image
Measure your minds height by the shadow it casts.
Rex Stout
Image
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
Image
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.
Rex Stout
Image
Everything in a story should be credible.
Rex Stout
Image
I have a strong moral sense - by my standards.
Rex Stout
Image
I still can't decide which is more fun - reading or writing.
Rex Stout
Image
There are only two kinds of books which you can write and be pretty sure you're going to make a living — cook books and detective stories.
Rex Stout
Image
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.
Rex Stout
Image
I think one or two of the later Holmes stories are among the best.
Rex Stout
Image
A schedule broken at will becomes a mere procession of vagaries.
Rex Stout
Image
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
Image
A guest is a jewel on the cushion of hospitality
Rex Stout
Image
Opinions, from experts, cost money.
Rex Stout
Image
Hemingway never grew out of adolescence. His scope and depth stayed shallow because he had no idea what women are for.
Rex Stout