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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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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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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 schedule broken at will becomes a mere procession of vagaries.
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The Glass Key is better than anything Hemingway ever wrote
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I will ride my luck on occasion, but I like to pick the occasion.
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Hemingway never grew out of adolescence. His scope and depth stayed shallow because he had no idea what women are for.
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Women don't require motives that are comprehensible to my intellectual processes.
Rex Stout
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Dignities are like faces no two are the same.
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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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I still can't decide which is more fun - reading or writing.
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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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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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Measure your minds height by the shadow it casts.
Rex Stout
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We are all vainer of our luck than of our merits.
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I have a strong moral sense - by my standards.
Rex Stout
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Nothing is more admirable than the fortitude with which millionaires tolerate the disadvantages of their wealth.
Rex Stout
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In a world that operates largely at random, coincidences are to be expected, but any one of them must always be mistrusted.
Rex Stout
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As a professional writer of detective stories, I string along with the ballplayers. I love a ball game.
Rex Stout
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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.
Rex Stout
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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.
Rex Stout