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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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Rex Stout
Age: 88 †
Born: 1886
Born: December 1
Died: 1975
Died: October 27
Novelist
Radio Personality
Science Fiction Writer
Screenwriter
Writer
Noblesville
Indiana
Writer
Synthetic
Fiction
Quit
Asks
Quitting
Born
Tall
Two
Kinds
Character
Questions
Better
Characters
Kind
Short

More quotes by Rex Stout

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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.
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The more you put in your brain, the more it will hold - if you have one.
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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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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.
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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.
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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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Women don't require motives that are comprehensible to my intellectual processes.
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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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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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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.
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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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A guest is a jewel on the cushion of hospitality
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I will ride my luck on occasion, but I like to pick the occasion.
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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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A man may debar nonsense from his library of reason, but not from the arena of his impulses.
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Everything in a story should be credible.
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.
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I have a strong moral sense - by my standards.
Rex Stout
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I still can't decide which is more fun - reading or writing.
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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