228 Quotes by Rex Stout

Your presence here, Miss Eads, is preposterous. This is neither a rooming house nor an asylum for hysterical women; it is my – ” “I’m not hysterical!” “Very well, I withdraw it. It is not an asylum for unhysterical women; it is my office and my home.

What that bird would have done with a couple of Martinis under his fur would have been something to watch from an airplane.

Man’s brain, enlarged fortuitously, invented words in an ambitious attempt to learn how to think, only to have them usurped by his emotions. But we still try.

Certainly, certainly.” Irby sure was anxious to please. The dewdrops on his freckled cupola might have been glued on.

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

If you want to be contentious wait until you learn what you have to contend with. It works better that way.

Despite some initial reluctance to spend a whole book’s worth of time with a man who flirted with misogyny, I took the plunge. Wolfe, after all, had the good sense to live in Manhattan, and besides, you had to like a man who surrounded himself with exotic tropical plants, consumed epicurean meals, and had the chutzpah to make the universe conform to his rules. And when I met Archie Goodwin, his ebullience and his earthy, rakish charm won me over.

Can Mr. Wolfe help it if an attractive young fellow insists on coming to cry on his shoulder?

Mrs. Jaffee a little earlier. I asked if he was escorting Mrs. Jaffee. “Certainly,” he said virtuously. “She is my client. What’s that noise you’re making?” “It’s something special,” I told him, “and takes a lot of practice. Don’t try it offhand. It’s a derisive chortle.