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I have a strong moral sense - by my standards.

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
Standards
Moral
Strong
Sense

More quotes by Rex Stout

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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.
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.
Rex Stout
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I think one or two of the later Holmes stories are among the best.
Rex Stout
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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.
Rex Stout
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The requisitions of the income tax have added greatly to the attractions of mercenary crime.
Rex Stout
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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.
Rex Stout
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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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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
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As a professional writer of detective stories, I string along with the ballplayers. I love a ball game.
Rex Stout
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Sometimes it's things that take the joy out of life, like a blowout when you're hitting sixty or a button coming off of a shirt when you're in a hurry, but usually it's people.
Rex Stout
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I will ride my luck on occasion, but I like to pick the occasion.
Rex Stout
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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.
Rex Stout
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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.
Rex Stout
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It is always wiser, where there is a choice, to trust inertia. It is the greatest force in the world.
Rex Stout
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The trouble with an alarm clock is that what seems sensible when you set it seems absurd when it goes off
Rex Stout
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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.
Rex Stout
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Everything in a story should be credible.
Rex Stout
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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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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
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Dignities are like faces no two are the same.
Rex Stout