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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
Rounds
Born
Thought
Character
Writing
Contrived
Flat
Flats
Round

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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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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.
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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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In a world that operates largely at random, coincidences are to be expected, but any one of them must always be mistrusted.
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All my important decisions are made for me by my subconscious. My frontal lobes are just kidding themselves that they decide anything at all. All they do is think up reasons for the decisions that are already made.
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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.
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The Glass Key is better than anything Hemingway ever wrote
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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 requisitions of the income tax have added greatly to the attractions of mercenary crime.
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The more you put in your brain, the more it will hold - if you have one.
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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.
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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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A schedule broken at will becomes a mere procession of vagaries.
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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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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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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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I will ride my luck on occasion, but I like to pick the occasion.
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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.
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