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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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Rex Stout
Age: 88 †
Born: 1886
Born: December 1
Died: 1975
Died: October 27
Novelist
Radio Personality
Science Fiction Writer
Screenwriter
Writer
Noblesville
Indiana
Without
Hand
Detectives
Books
Packages
Story
Board
Hands
Boards
Chore
Stories
Mail
Unanswered
Home
Chess
Chores
Book
Manage
Detective
Come
Television
Package

More quotes by Rex Stout

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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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I still can't decide which is more fun - reading or writing.
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A schedule broken at will becomes a mere procession of vagaries.
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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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It is always wiser, where there is a choice, to trust inertia. It is the greatest force in the world.
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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.
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Measure your minds height by the shadow it casts.
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The Glass Key is better than anything Hemingway ever wrote
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Dignities are like faces no two are the same.
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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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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 have a strong moral sense - by my standards.
Rex Stout
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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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Bosh. I find a rival - but no, I won't flatter myself that Tecumseh Fox would consider himself a rival of Dol Bonner - I find an eminent detective in your apartment, and that alone is enough, without adding that he is concealed in your bedroom while I am discussing my business with you.
Rex Stout
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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.
Rex Stout
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We are all vainer of our luck than of our merits.
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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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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Everything in a story should be credible.
Rex Stout
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MY rule is never to be rude to anyone unless you mean it.
Rex Stout