One of the hardest things to believe is that anyone will abandon the effort to escape a charge of murder. It is extremely important to suspend disbelief on that. If you don’t, the story is spoiled. – Rex Stout
The minute those two little particles inside a woman’s womb have joined together, billions of decisions have been made. A thing like that has to come from entropy. – Rex Stout
I have never regarded myself as this or that. I have been too busy being myself to bother about regarding myself. – Rex Stout
Hemingway never grew out of adolescence. His scope and depth stayed shallow because he had no idea what women are for. – Rex Stout
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. – Rex Stout
To say that 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
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. – Rex Stout
As a professional writer of detective stories, I string along with the ballplayers. I love a ball game. – Rex Stout
