favorite lines: Over My Dead Body and Where There's a Will, Nero Wolfe 7 & 8

[cimorene]

"When an international financier is confronted by a holdup man with a gun, he automatically hands over not only his money and jewelry but also his shirt and pants, because it doesn't occur to him that a robber might draw the line somewhere."

• It was so loony that it dazed me.



• The yell that had split the air sounded like something that you might expect but would certainly resent if you found yourself alone in a jungle at night.



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



• "When an international financier is confronted by a holdup man with a gun, he automatically hands over not only his money and jewelry but also his shirt and pants, because it doesn't occur to him that a robber might draw the line somewhere."



• "Phone Mr. Cramer. Give him everything."
  
  "Including my trip to the love nest?"
  
  He grimaced. "Don't use terms like that when my stomach's empty."



• I felt a lot like a hard morning at the alphabet piano.



• I opened the door and went in, and right away, even in the anteroom, found myself in the midst of prosperity, judging by the rugs and furniture and the type of employee displayed. She was the kind who without any visible effort conveys the impression that she got a job in an office only because she was fed up with yachting and riding to hounds.



• Cramer said, "I'm not a fool."
  
  Wolfe nodded again. "We all feel like that occasionally. The poison of conceit. It's all right if you keep an antidote handy."



• "[You] are pure imbecile. Most people are, under great stress, but that merely gives you company."



• "Do you take me for a maudlin blatherskite?"

—Rex Stout, Over My Dead Body

• I had to gulp the coffee, and it was as hot as hell's dishwater.



• "You've charged me," Wolfe snapped, "with being a knave and a nincompoop. Good day, sir."



• I did not believe that anyone, even April Hawthorne, could act the part of thirty wildcats with that amount of fervor; that one in the library actually was thirty wildcats.



• By midnight I was ready to bite holes in the windows.



• "Would you mind removing your hat, Miss Dunn? I deduce the thing is a hat, because it's on your head."

—Rex Stout, Where There's a Will