WIST

The problem with an alarm clock is that what seems sensible when you set it seems absurd when it goes off.

Rex Stout (1886-1975) American writer
“The Rodeo Murder” (1960)

What makes a marriage last is for a man and a woman to continue to have things to argue about.

Rex Stout (1886-1975) American writer
(Attributed)

No man should tell a lie unless he is shrewd enough to recognize the time for renouncing it, if and when it comes, and knows how to renounce it gracefully.

Rex Stout (1886-1975) American writer
Before Midnight, ch. 15 [Wolfe] (1955)

I would appreciate it if they would call a halt on all their devoted efforts to find a way to abolish war or eliminate disease or run trains with atoms or extend the span of human life to a couple of centuries, and everybody concentrate for a while on how to wake me up in the morning without my resenting it. It may be that a bevy of beautiful maidens in pure silk yellow very sheer gowns, barefooted, singing Oh, What a Beautiful Morning and scattering rose petals over me would do the trick, but I’d have to try it.

Rex Stout (1886-1975) American writer
Before Midnight, ch. 20 [Archie] (1955)

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.

Rex Stout (1886-1975) American writer
Fer-de-Lance, ch. 1 [Wolfe] (1934)

War doesn’t mature men; it merely pickles them in the brine of disgust and dread.

Rex Stout (1886-1975) American writer
Over My Dead Body, ch. 8 [Wolfe] (1940)

No man was ever taken to hell by a woman unless he already had a ticket in his pocket or at least had been fooling around with timetables.

Rex Stout (1886-1975) American writer
Some Buried Caesar, ch. 3 [Archie] (1939)

Starving the living will not profit the dead.

Rex Stout (1886-1975) American writer
The Black Mountain (1954)

I do not insult Marko. I pay him the tribute of speaking of him and feeling about him precisely as I did when he lived; the insult would be to smear his corpse with the honey excreted by my fear of death.

Rex Stout (1886-1975) American writer
The Black Mountain, ch. 2 (1954)

To be broke is not a disgrace, it is only a catastrophe.

Rex Stout (1886-1975) American writer
The League of Frightened Men, ch. 7 [Wolfe] (1935)

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

Rex Stout (1886-1975) American writer
The Red Box, ch. 11 [Wolfe] (1937)

They had Gebert down there, slapping him around and squealing and yelling at him. If you’re so sure violence is inferior technique, you should have seen that exhibition; it was wonderful. They say it works sometimes, but even if it does, how could you depend on anything you got that way? Not to mention that after you had done it a few times any decent garbage can would be ashamed to have you found in it.

Rex Stout (1886-1975) American writer
The Red Box, ch. 14 [Archie] (1937)

To me the relationship of host and guest is sacred. The guest is a jewel resting on the cushion of hospitality.

Rex Stout (1886-1975) American writer
Too Many Cooks, ch. 6 [Wolfe] (1938)

I think the detective story is by far the best upholder of the democratic doctrine in literature. I mean, there couldn’t have been detective stories until there were democracies, because the very foundation of the detective story is the thesis that if you’re guilty you’ll get it in the neck and if you’re innocent you can’t possibly be harmed. No matter who you are. There was no such conception of justice until after 1830. There was no such thing as a policeman or a detective in the world before 1830, because the modern conception of the policeman and detective, namely, a man whose only function is to find out who did it and then get the evidence that will punish him, did not exist. … In Paris before the year 1800 — read the Dumas stories — there were gangs of people whose business was to go out and punish wrongdoers. But why? Because they had hurt De Marillac or Richelieu or the Duke or some Huguenot noble, not just because they had harmed society. It is only the modern policeman that is out to protect society.

Rex Stout (1886-1975) American writer
Roundtable discussion of Sherlock Holmes, on Mark Van Doren’s Invitation to Learning (Jan 1942)
Transcribed in M. Van Doren, The New Invitation to Learning: The Essence of the Great Books of All Times (1942)