228 Quotes by Rex Stout

I think the police and the FBI are quite capable of sacrificing the rights of a private citizen to what they consider the public interest.

No, she did not denounce the impostor, but indubitably she made him aware that she knew he was not Eric Hagh. She may have done so merely by the way she looked at him, or she may have asked him some naive and revealing question. In any case, he knew he was in deadly peril from her, and he acted quickly and audaciously – and with dexterity, taking her keys from her bag. No, he is not a bungler, but –.

I followed the pavement a little over a mile and then turned left again onto a dirt road. It was as narrow as a bigot’s mind, and I got in the ruts and stayed there.

He lowered the magazine. “Archie. You may remember that I once returned a retainer of forty thousand dollars which a client named Zimmermann had paid me, because he wanted to tell me how to handle his case instead of leaving it to me. Well?” He lifted the magazine. He lowered it again. “Please type the report.” He lifted it again.

I gathered that with the men the consensus was that women were okay in their place, which I guess was the way cavemen felt about it, and all their male descendants. The question was, and still is, what’s their place?

You know what my boss says? He says that skepticism is a good watchdog if you know when to take the leash off.

It is indubitable that Carol Mardus was the mother of the baby left in Mrs. Valdon’s vestibule and that she was gravely disquieted to learn that I knew it and could demonstrate it.

No. The morning will do. You’re impetuous.” He looked at the wall clock. Fritz would come any minute to announce dinner. “Can you get Saul now?

At first, yes. But a long intimacy frees you of that illusion, and it also acquaints you with their scantiness of character. The effect they have produced on you is only their bluff. There is not such a thing as too much beauty.