In the Best Families Quotes

“He straightened up. “Your chief trouble,” he said, not offensively, “is that you think you’ve got a sense of humor. It confuses people, and you ought to get over it. Things strike you as funny. You thought it would be funny to have a talk with Rackham, and it may be all right this time, but someday something that you think is funny will blow your goddam head right off your shoulders.” Only after he had gone did it occur to me that that wouldn’t prove it wasn’t funny.”
― Rex Stout, In the Best Families

“There was one chore Wolfe had given me which I haven’t mentioned, because I didn’t care to reveal the details—and still don’t. But the time will come when you will want to know where the gun at the bottom of the brief case came from, so I may as well say now that you aren’t going to know.”
― Rex Stout, In the Best Families

“You are to act in the light of experience as guided by intelligence.”
― Rex Stout, In the Best Families

“The eyes were the result of an error on the assembly line. They had been intended for a shark and someone got careless.”
― Rex Stout, In the Best Families

“I do not like dogs that assume you’re guilty until you prove you’re innocent. I like democratic dogs.”
― Rex Stout, In the Best Families

“I discovered that I was shivering, decided to stop, and did.”
― Rex Stout, In the Best Families

“When, at 11:01, the sound of Wolfe's elevator came, I got the big dictionary in front of me on my desk, opened to H, and was bent over it as he entered the office, crossed to his oversized custom-built chair, and sat. He didn't bite at once because his mind was elsewhere. Even before he rang for beer he asked, "Has the sausage come?"
Without looking up I told him no.
He pressed the button twice--the beer signal--leaned back, and frowned at me. I didn't see the frown, absorbed as I was in the dictionary, but it was in his tone of voice.
"What are you looking up?" he demanded.
"Oh, just a word," I said casually. "Checking up on our client. I thought she was illiterate, her calling you handsome--remember? But, by gum, it was merely an understatement. Here it is, absolutely kosher: 'Handsome: moderately large.' For example it gives 'a handsome sum of money.' So she was dead right, you're a handsome detective, meaning a moderately large detective." I closed the dictionary and returned it to its place, remarking cheerfully, "Live and learn!”
― Rex Stout, In the Best Families

“So I didn’t like it, and I either had to lump it or bow out. I tossed a coin: heads I stick, tails I quit. It landed tails, but I had to veto it because I had already talked to Orrie Cather and he was coming at noon, and I had left messages for Fred Durkin and Saul Panzer. I tossed again, tails again. I tossed once more and it was heads, which settled it. I had to stick.”
― Rex Stout, In the Best Families

“No doubt life was hard for him—born with the instincts of a Hitler or Stalin in a country where people are determined to do their own voting.”
― Rex Stout, In the Best Families

“The last stretch of our walk was along a curving gravel path that wound through lawns, shrubs, trees, and different-shaped patches of bare earth. Living in the country would be more convenient if they would repeal the law against paths that go straight from one place to another place.”
― Rex Stout, In the Best Families