People From Indianapolis

"Stout was almost as witty as Raymond Chandler. His detective had splendid putdown lines almost as good as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. And his mysteries were constructed a lot more smoothly than Agatha Christie's. But you do not expect Chandlerian wit from Conan Doyle, or Conan Doyle's superbly breathless sense of atmosphere and melodrama from Christie, or Christie's scathingly clear, unblinking vision of the monstrous crimes that average human nature is capable of all from the same pen. Stout gives you all of it. He is the Willie Mays or Derek Jeter of the mystery genre: a brilliant all-rounder more talented in each area than any single writer should ever dream of being."

"When Stout is on top of his game, which is most of the time, his diabolically clever plotting and his storytelling ability exceed that of any other mystery writer you can name, including Agatha Christie, who invented her own eccentric genius detective, Hercule Poirot."

"Rex Stout is one of the half-dozen major figures in the development of the American detective novel. With great wit and cunning, he devised a form which combined the traditional virtues of Sherlock Holmes and the English school with the fast-moving vernacular narrative of Dashiell Hammett."

"Wolfe talks in a way that no human being on the face of the earth has ever spoken, with the possible exception of Rex Stout after he had a gin and tonic."

"This fellow is the best of them all."

"Stout says to us, "Here are two friends. Here are two people sharing their lives. As you wish for friendship, share in theirs. As you seek companionship, share in theirs. As you search for love, share in theirs." Rex Stout invites us into the family and offers warmth and security and certainty. He affirms what we all seek on some primal level. If such disparate individuals as Wolfe and Goodwin can share friendship and love and caring and life, can not we? That’s the strength here. That’s the message and the feel-good inherent in the voice and character that Rex Stout has given to Archie Goodwin. In this cold world, it is a fire on which we may warm our hands."

"If he had done nothing more than to create Archie Goodwin, Rex Stout would deserve the gratitude of whatever assessors watch over the prosperity of American literature."

"There are only two kinds of books which you can write and be pretty sure you're going to make a living – cook books and detective stories."

"There isn't a generation gap between you and me – there's two."

"The only thing I want is something I can't have; and that is to know if, 100 years from now, people will still buy my books."

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

"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."

"There are two kinds of characters in all fiction, the born and the synthetic. If the writer has to ask himself questions – is he tall, is he short? – he had better quit."

"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."

"I'm not a collector. I don't keep letters, or books, or souvenirs. But I do keep one copy of each translation of my books into a foreign language. Have you ever seen a murder story printed in Singhalese? Wow!"

"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 ..."

"I saw every performance Nijinsky danced in New York, and I see every baseball game I can get to. You watch a good second baseman digging for a badly thrown ball without letting his foot leave base and it's the same beautiful impossibility as a good pas de deux in Swan Lake."

"I don't approve of open fires. You can't think, or talk or even make love in front of a fireplace. All you can do is stare at it."

"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."

"The only difference between me and most people is that I'm perfectly aware that all my important decisions are made for me by my subconscious. My frontal lobes are just kidding themselves that they decide anything at all. All they do is think up reasons for the decisions that are already made."

"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."

"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."

"Of course the modern detective story puts off its best tricks till the last, but Doyle always put his best tricks first and that's why they're still the best ones."

"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."

"It is impossible for any Sherlock Holmes story not to have at least one marvelous scene."

"The incredible thing happens at the beginning of the story always, you notice, not the end. A Sherlock Holmes story is never a trick story."

"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."

"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..."

"There are various ways to call a man a liar. One way is just to scream it at him, which doesn't prove anything. Another is to establish facts by long and patient investigation. Still another way is not to call him a liar at all – let him do it himself."

"My friends, no matter how rough the road may be, we can and we will never surrender to what is right."

"We're going to have the best educated American people in the world."

"One word sums up probably the responsibility of any Vice President, and that one word is 'to be prepared'."

"It's wonderful to be here in the great state of Chicago."

"Welcome to President Bush, Mrs. Bush, and my fellow astronauts."

"Republicans have been accused of abandoning the poor. It's the other way around. They never vote for us."

"It isn't pollution that's harming the environment. It's the impurities in our air and water that are doing it."

"The best thing about the Middle East is that is keeps the Far East and Near East from encroaching on each other."

"I was recently on a tour of Latin America, and the only regret I have was that I didn't study Latin harder in school so I could converse with those people."

"He's a very different man than the intellectual midget that has been portrayed in much of the media.... I think he's going to make an excellent Vice President, and I believe that he's going to be a popular Vice President just as soon as the people of this country see him as he is."

"These essays, then, come from New York: the real and imagined city where feminist sexual liberationists, rootless cosmopolitan Jews, not-nice girls/boys/others, loudmouth exiles of all colors are an integral and conspicuous part of the landscape; the pariah community Dan Quayle lambasted as a failed welfare state shortly before making his inspired leap from Murphy Brown's baby to L.A. lawlessness"

"Dan Quayle is all three! All three! Stupid, full of shit, and fucking nuts! And where did he get that wife of his? Have you taken a good look at that Marilyn Quayle? Where did he get her, at a Halloween party or something? She looks like Prince Charles, for Christ's sake!"

"Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy."

"Admit it-the world is mighty wacky. Dan Quayle is a heartbeat away from bravely leading us into the New World Order..."

"Bobby Knight told me this: "There is nothing that a good defense—cannot beat a better offense." In other words a good offense wins."

"The Holocaust was an obscene period in our nation's history. [on followup] No, not our nation's, but in World War II. I mean, we all lived in this century. I didn't live in this century, but in this century's history."

"It is not just age; it's accomplishments, it's experience. I have far more experience than many others that sought the office of vice president of this country. I have as much experience in the Congress as Jack Kennedy did when he sought the presidency. I will be prepared to deal with the people in the Bush administration, if that unfortunate event would ever occur."

"In George Bush you get experience, and with me you get the future."

"People that are really very weird can get into sensitive positions and have a tremendous impact on history."

"You all look like happy campers to me. Happy campers you are, happy campers you have been, and, as far as I am concerned, happy campers you will always be."

"Hawaii has always been a very pivotal role in the Pacific. It is in the Pacific. It is a part of the United States that is an island that is right here."