Quote

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.

Rex Stout

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Rex Stout
Age: 88 †
Born: 1886
Born: December 1
Died: 1975
Died: October 27
Novelist
Radio Personality
Science Fiction Writer
Screenwriter
Writer
Noblesville
Indiana
Action
Futile
Would
Slightest
Men
Reputation
Oddity
Technique
Revert
Labor
Oddities
Normal
Eccentricity
Ready
Provocation
Understand
Establishing

More quotes by Rex Stout

Image
Dignities are like faces no two are the same.
Rex Stout
Image
The constant petty behests of life permit few opportunities for major satisfactions, and when one is offered it should be seized.
Rex Stout
Image
The only two kinds of books could earn an American writer a living are cookbooks and detective novels.
Rex Stout
Image
I will ride my luck on occasion, but I like to pick the occasion.
Rex Stout
Image
The more you put in your brain, the more it will hold - if you have one.
Rex Stout
Image
To say that a man is a reasoning animal is a very different thing than to say that most of man's decisions are based on his rational process. That I don't believe at all.
Rex Stout
Image
The trouble with an alarm clock is that what seems sensible when you set it seems absurd when it goes off
Rex Stout
Image
The Glass Key is better than anything Hemingway ever wrote
Rex Stout
Image
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
Image
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.
Rex Stout
Image
A schedule broken at will becomes a mere procession of vagaries.
Rex Stout
Image
We are all vainer of our luck than of our merits.
Rex Stout
Image
Hemingway never grew out of adolescence. His scope and depth stayed shallow because he had no idea what women are for.
Rex Stout
Image
Opinions, from experts, cost money.
Rex Stout
Image
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
Image
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
Image
Measure your minds height by the shadow it casts.
Rex Stout
Image
As a professional writer of detective stories, I string along with the ballplayers. I love a ball game.
Rex Stout
Image
God made you and me, in certain respects, quite unequal, and it would be futile to try any interference with His arrangements.
Rex Stout
Image
There are only two kinds of books which you can write and be pretty sure you're going to make a living — cook books and detective stories.
Rex Stout