Quote

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

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
Born
Tall
Two
Kinds
Character
Questions
Better
Characters
Kind
Short
Writer
Synthetic
Fiction
Quit
Asks
Quitting

More quotes by 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
A man may debar nonsense from his library of reason, but not from the arena of his impulses.
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
I will ride my luck on occasion, but I like to pick the occasion.
Rex Stout
Image
In a world that operates largely at random, coincidences are to be expected, but any one of them must always be mistrusted.
Rex Stout
Image
Only fools and philosophers waste time on the unknowable.
Rex Stout
Image
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
Image
Dignities are like faces no two are the same.
Rex Stout
Image
A guest is a jewel on the cushion of hospitality
Rex Stout
Image
I have a strong moral sense - by my standards.
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
MY rule is never to be rude to anyone unless you mean it.
Rex Stout
Image
Everything in a story should be credible.
Rex Stout
Image
The Glass Key is better than anything Hemingway ever wrote
Rex Stout
Image
The only two kinds of books could earn an American writer a living are cookbooks and detective novels.
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
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
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.
Rex Stout
Image
As a professional writer of detective stories, I string along with the ballplayers. I love a ball game.
Rex Stout
Image
I think one or two of the later Holmes stories are among the best.
Rex Stout