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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

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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
Born
Thought
Character
Writing
Contrived
Flat
Flats
Round
Rounds

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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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The requisitions of the income tax have added greatly to the attractions of mercenary crime.
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The Glass Key is better than anything Hemingway ever wrote
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I will ride my luck on occasion, but I like to pick the occasion.
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I think one or two of the later Holmes stories are among the best.
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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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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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The only two kinds of books could earn an American writer a living are cookbooks and detective novels.
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Nothing is more admirable than the fortitude with which millionaires tolerate the disadvantages of their wealth.
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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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A man may debar nonsense from his library of reason, but not from the arena of his impulses.
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We are all vainer of our luck than of our merits.
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Only fools and philosophers waste time on the unknowable.
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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.
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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
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I have a strong moral sense - by my standards.
Rex Stout
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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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Opinions, from experts, cost money.
Rex Stout