Quotes from Rex Stout

If the breath of her voice had dribbled off the edge of a roof it would have made icicles.

I do not like dogs that assume you're guilty until you prove you're innocent. I like democratic dogs.

Nothing corrupts a man so deeply as writing a book; the myriad temptations are overpowering. I wouldn't presume—

I was yelling at a dame with a frontage that would have made a good bookshelf.

When you once get a reputation, or it gets you, you're stuck with it for good.

Cramer was unimpressed. He had got out a cigar and was rolling it between his palms. I never understood why he did that, since you roll a cigar to make it draw better, and he never lit one but only chewed it.

Would you mind removing your hat, Miss Dunn? I deduce the thing is a hat, because it's on your head. Thank you. I don't like restaurant conventions in my dining room.

I looked at her. In that getup, to me she was a treat; to Wolfe, in his own house, she would have been an impudence. "Because there's no chair on this floor big enough for him. I'll wait outside.

The toughest guy I ever ran into had cheeks that needed a brassière.

The eyes were the result of an error on the assembly line. They had been intended for a shark and someone got careless.

You are headstrong and I am magisterial. Our tolerance of each other is a constantly recurring miracle.

He smacked his lips, tasting the fifth brand, and holding up the glass looked through the amber at the light. "This is a pleasant surprise, Archie. I would not have believed it. That of course is the advantage of being a pessimist; a pessimist gets nothing but pleasant surprises, an optimist nothing but unpleasant. So far, none of this is sewage.

I have just been explaining to Mr. Anderson that the ingenious theory of the Barstow case which he is trying to embrace is an offense to truth and an outrage on justice, and since I cherish the one and am on speaking terms with the other, it is my duty to demonstrate to him its inadequacy.

hung up and went back out to the car and told Fred: "A new era has begun. The earth has turned around and started the other way. Mr. Wolfe has left home in a taxicab to work on a case." "Huh? Nuts." "Nope. As Fritz says, honest for God. He really has. So if you'll—" "But Jesus, Archie. He'll get killed or something.

You are timid and vengeless. When you first saw that word you were in short pants and numberless words in the books you read were strange and thrilling.

Wolfe snorted. "The man's a fool. It's only a cow pasture." Being a good detective, he produced his evidence by pointing to a brown circular heap near our feet.

Some day, Archie, when I decide you are no longer worth tolerating, you will have to marry a woman of very modest mental capacity to get an appropriate audience for your wretched sarcasms.

The inquiring mind is rarely blessed with certainty; it must make shift with assumptions;

Amazing that a creature so obtuse could live so long without meeting disaster.

Ye should have killed me, watched the last mean sigh Sneak through my nostril like a

guest is a jewel on the cushion of hospitality.

In a moment Wolfe said gruffly, "It is faintly encouraging that you are aware that you were stupid.

If you like Anglo-Saxon, I belched. If you fancy Latin, I eructed.

My dinner's in an hour, and I don't want to waste time flopping around in a mire of inanities.