Quote

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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Rex Stout
Age: 88 †
Born: 1886
Born: December 1
Died: 1975
Died: October 27
Novelist
Radio Personality
Science Fiction Writer
Screenwriter
Writer
Noblesville
Indiana
Story
Charge
Stories
Abandon
Important
Extremely
Believe
Escape
Things
Murder
Hardest
Suspend
Effort
Disbelief
Anyone
Spoiled

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The requisitions of the income tax have added greatly to the attractions of mercenary crime.
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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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Women don't require motives that are comprehensible to my intellectual processes.
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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.
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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.
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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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The more you put in your brain, the more it will hold - if you have one.
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As a professional writer of detective stories, I string along with the ballplayers. I love a ball game.
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I will ride my luck on occasion, but I like to pick the occasion.
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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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Measure your minds height by the shadow it casts.
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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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A guest is a jewel on the cushion of hospitality
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Only fools and philosophers waste time on the unknowable.
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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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Everything in a story should be credible.
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We are all vainer of our luck than of our merits.
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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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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.
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