Quotes from Rex Stout

But he wouldn't find me in the office, sitting there like patience in the hoosegow.

dived through the rain across the sidewalk, found

Mysteries are like cayenne for the brain. The senses do pick up. Who was Jack the Ripper? Who killed Judge Crater? How did I burn through my paycheck so fast? Such questions can intrigue or infuriate, but the mind snaps to attention. from the Introduction

Archie Goodwin is the distilled optimism of America as it was for more than half of this century. Ebullient and proud, he still had to be humble because of the great brain of his employer. I read

Patting a shoulder can be anything from an apology to a promise, and only the patter can say which.

Third, 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.

A tiger's eyes can't make light, Saul, they can only reflect it.

seemed likely to remain so for another seven, or even twenty-seven, for the only girl I had ever been really soft on had found another bargain she liked

His had a nice rug which he said was an eighteenth-century Feraghan.

I don't want to eat," she said in a thin voice. "I can't eat." She ate seven sausages, which was nothing against her grief. Fritz's saucisse minuit would make Gandhi a gourmet.

culture was like money, it comes easiest to those who need it least.

That is always a triumph, to evade boredom.

though it is a form of intimacy I don't care for, since I have a tendency to fight shy of bonds.

Or had it been just a nightmare? I clambered to my feet and went to a mirror to look, and there was a livid ring around my neck.

Wolfe shook his head. "No. Only that afternoon. If we had to argue that it is not credible that it was left in the cupboard for an extended period, just for anyone to use, but we don't have to. The bottle in that cupboard contained good iodine at four o'clock that afternoon." Cramer growled. Daniel demanded, "How do you know that?" "Because it was used at that hour. By Archie. He tripped on an alligator and scratched his hand.

Byron wrote 'The glory and the nothing of a name

Some day, Archie, I shall be constrained Ã¢â'¬Â¦ but no. I cannot remake the universe, and must therefore put up with this one. What is, is, including you." He

You should know that your only safe secrets are those you have yourself forgotten.

He'll try again. With money to pay lawyers you can do a lot of dodging. That's one of the disadvantages of being poor, you don't dare kill anybody.

One rule is this: that if the risk of a transaction is very great it should not be considered at all, no matter what profit it offers if it is successful.

I discovered that I was shivering, decided to stop, and did.

He broke off and glanced at me because a knock sounded at the door. I lifted from my chair and started across, but it opened before I got there and two men entered.

A schedule broken at will becomes a mere procession of vagaries.

Viola Duday herded Sarah Jaffee to a far corner for a tête-à-tête.