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
Novel
Books
Cookbook
American
Detective
Living
Detectives
Two
Earn
Book
Novels
Writing
Kinds
Kind
Writer

More quotes by 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
In a world that operates largely at random, coincidences are to be expected, but any one of them must always be mistrusted.
Rex Stout
Image
The Glass Key is better than anything Hemingway ever wrote
Rex Stout
Image
Dignities are like faces no two are the same.
Rex Stout
Image
I love to make a mistake. It is my only assurance that I cannot reasonably be expected to assume the responsibility of omniscience.
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
Everything in a story should be credible.
Rex Stout
Image
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
Image
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.
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
I still can't decide which is more fun - reading or writing.
Rex Stout
Image
MY rule is never to be rude to anyone unless you mean it.
Rex Stout
Image
We are all vainer of our luck than of our merits.
Rex Stout
Image
Nothing is more admirable than the fortitude with which millionaires tolerate the disadvantages of their wealth.
Rex Stout
Image
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
Image
God made you and me, in certain respects, quite unequal, and it would be futile to try any interference with His arrangements.
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
I think one or two of the later Holmes stories are among the best.
Rex Stout
Image
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.
Rex Stout
Image
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.
Rex Stout