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

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MY rule is never to be rude to anyone unless you mean it.
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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 have a strong moral sense - by my standards.
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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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Opinions, from experts, cost money.
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I will ride my luck on occasion, but I like to pick the occasion.
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I think one or two of the later Holmes stories are among the best.
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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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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 guest is a jewel on the cushion of hospitality
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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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The requisitions of the income tax have added greatly to the attractions of mercenary crime.
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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.
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Dignities are like faces no two are the same.
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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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Nothing is more admirable than the fortitude with which millionaires tolerate the disadvantages of their wealth.
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All my important decisions are made for me by my subconscious. My frontal lobes are just kidding themselves that they decide anything at all. All they do is think up reasons for the decisions that are already made.
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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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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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