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

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

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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.
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I love books, food, music, sleep, people who work, heated arguments, the United States of America, and my wife and children. I dislike politicians, preachers, genteel persons, people who do not work or are on vacation, closed minds, movies, loud noises, and oiliness.
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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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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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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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Women don't require motives that are comprehensible to my intellectual processes.
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I have a strong moral sense - by my standards.
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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 trouble with an alarm clock is that what seems sensible when you set it seems absurd when it goes off
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We are all vainer of our luck than of our merits.
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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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Only fools and philosophers waste time on the unknowable.
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The Glass Key is better than anything Hemingway ever wrote
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Measure your minds height by the shadow it casts.
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The requisitions of the income tax have added greatly to the attractions of mercenary crime.
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The more you put in your brain, the more it will hold - if you have one.
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I still can't decide which is more fun - reading or writing.
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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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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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Everything in a story should be credible.
Rex Stout