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Rex Stout
23 quotes
“There are various ways to call a man a liar. One way is just to scream it at him, which doesn't prove anything. Another is to establish facts by long and patient investigation. Still another way is not to call him a liar at all – let him do it himself.”
Rex Stout (1886–1975) first seen 1942 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On his work on Our Secret Weapon, as quoted in "Mystery Story Writer Turns Detective, Finding Axis Lies; Rex Stout, Creator of Nero Wolfe, Using Our Secret Weapon – Truth" by Trudi McCullough in The Milwaukee Journal (3…
“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...”
Rex Stout (1886–1975) said by 1975 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I really mean what I say. A Dickens character to me is a theatrical projection of a character. Not that it isn't real. It's real, but in that removed sense. But Sherlock Holmes is simply there. I would be astonished if I went to 221½ B Baker Street and didn't find him.”
Rex Stout (1886–1975) said by 1975 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The incredible thing happens at the beginning of the story always, you notice, not the end. A Sherlock Holmes story is never a trick story.”
Rex Stout (1886–1975) said by 1975 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is impossible for any Sherlock Holmes story not to have at least one marvelous scene.”
Rex Stout (1886–1975) said by 1975 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Of course the modern detective story puts off its best tricks till the last, but Doyle always put his best tricks first and that's why they're still the best ones.”
Rex Stout (1886–1975) said by 1975 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What do I believe in? Belief means faith, and there's only one damn 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 (1886–1975) said by 1975 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Rex Stout (1886–1975) said by 1975 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The only difference between me and most people is that I'm perfectly aware that 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.”
Rex Stout (1886–1975) said by 1975 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A person who does not read cannot think. He may have good mental processes, but he has nothing to think about. You can feel for people or natural phenomena and react to them, but they are not ideas. You cannot think about them.”
Rex Stout (1886–1975) said by 1975 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (1886–1975) said by 1975 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I saw every performance Nijinsky danced in New York, and I see every baseball game I can get to. You watch a good second baseman digging for a badly thrown ball without letting his foot leave base and it's the same beautiful impossibility as a good pas de deux in Swan Lake.”
Rex Stout (1886–1975) said by 1975 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Any man who undertakes to write a play is either a damn fool or a hero, I don't know which. When you write a book, you pull it out of the typewriter and that's that. When you write a play you've got to go on with the producer and the director and the actors and the rehearsals and the ...”
Rex Stout (1886–1975) said by 1975 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I'm not a collector. I don't keep letters, or books, or souvenirs. But I do keep one copy of each translation of my books into a foreign language. Have you ever seen a murder story printed in Singhalese? Wow!”
Rex Stout (1886–1975) said by 1975 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There are damn few great writers and I'm not one of them. While I could afford to I played with words. When I could no longer afford that I wrote for money.”
Rex Stout (1886–1975) said by 1975 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (1886–1975) said by 1975 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“One trouble with living beyond your deserved number of years is that there's always some reason to live another year. And I'd like to live another year so that Nixon won't be President. If he's re-elected I'll have to live another four years.”
Rex Stout (1886–1975) first seen 1972 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Nixon was re-elected in 1972, but Stout survived his August 1974 resignation from the Presidency by more than a year.
“My God you love to get them, and good Lord you hate to answer them.”
Rex Stout (1886–1975) said by 1975 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The only thing I want is something I can't have; and that is to know if, 100 years from now, people will still buy my books.”
Rex Stout (1886–1975) said by 1975 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There isn't a generation gap between you and me – there's two.”
Rex Stout (1886–1975) said by 1975 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Rex Stout (1886–1975) said by 1975 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I really mean what I say. A Dickens character to me is a theatrical projection of a character. Not that it isn't real. It's real, but in that removed sense. But Sherlock Holmes is simply there. I would be astonished if I went to 221½ B Baker Street and didn't find him.”
Rex Stout (1886–1975) said by 1975 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I think the detective story is by far the best upholder of the democratic doctrine in literature. I mean, there couldn't have been detective stories until there were democracies, because the very foundation of the detective story is the thesis that if you're guilty you'll get it in the neck and if you're innocent you can't possibly be harmed. No matter who you are. There was no such conception of justice until after 1830. There was no such thing as a policeman or a detective in the world before 1830, because the modern conception of the policeman and detective, namely, a man whose only function is to find out who did it and then get the evidence that will punish him, did not exist. ... In Paris before the year 1800 – read the Dumas stories – there were gangs of people whose business was to go out and punish wrongdoers. But why? Because they had hurt De Marillac or Richelieu or the Duke or some Huguenot noble, not just because they had harmed society. It is only the modern policeman that is out to protect society.”
Rex Stout (1886–1975) said by 1975 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source