Рекс Стаут цитаты

„Закон - это завистливое чудовище...“

—  Рекс Стаут

Общие цитаты

„We are all vainer of our luck than of our merits.“

—  Rex Stout, книга The Rubber Band

Источник: The Rubber Band

„[A] pessimist gets nothing but pleasant surprises, an optimist nothing but unpleasant.“

—  Rex Stout, книга Fer-de-Lance

Источник: Fer-de-Lance

„Nothing is more admirable than the fortitude with which millionaires tolerate the disadvantages of their wealth.“

—  Rex Stout, книга The Red Box

Источник: The Red Box

„I will ride my luck on occasion, but I like to pick the occasion.“

—  Rex Stout, книга Might as Well Be Dead

Источник: Might as Well Be Dead

„Genius is fine for the ignition spark, but to get there someone has to see that the radiator doesn't leak and no tire is flat.“

—  Rex Stout, книга The Doorbell Rang

Источник: The Doorbell Rang

„Afraid? I can dodge folly without backing into fear.“

—  Rex Stout, книга The Doorbell Rang

Источник: The Doorbell Rang

„The more you put in your brain, the more it will hold -- if you have one.“

—  Rex Stout

„A man may debar nonsense from his library of reason, but not from the arena of his impulses.“

—  Rex Stout, книга The League of Frightened Men

Источник: The League of Frightened Men

„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

Nixon was re-elected in 1972, but Stout survived his August 1974 resignation from the Presidency by more than a year.
The New York Times

„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, книга Bad for Business

Dol Bonner, to her employee Amy Duncan, chapter 2
Bad for Business

„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

Life

„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

Life

„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

Rex Stout, on why he turned from writing serious fiction to detective stories
The New York Times

„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

Rex Stout, page 244
Invitation to Learning

„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

Life

„There isn't a generation gap between you and me — there's two.“

—  Rex Stout

Rex Stout to photographer Jill Krementz
Publishers Weekly

„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

Life

„My God you love to get them, and good Lord you hate to answer them.“

—  Rex Stout

On letters from his readers
The New York Times