Nero Wolfe: In the Best Families, Murder by the Book, Three Doors to Death, Curtains for Three

[cimorene]

“Anyone who cuts a five-inch gash in the territory of the eighth rib may be presumed to have maleficent intentions, and probably pertinacity to boot.”

• He walked as if he meant it.


• 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.


• "Your chief trouble," he said, not offensively, "is that you think you've got a sense of humor. It confueses people, and you ought to get over it."


• I looked emergency up in the dictionary, and got "an unforeseen combination of circumstances which calls for immediate action." Since this was just the opposite, a foreseen combination of circumstances which called for getting a good night's sleep, I didn't dial the number. I did get the good night's sleep.

—Rex Stout, In the Best Families

• “If you want me to,” I offered, “I’ll tell you what’s wrong with our civilization.”
  
  “I want you to. What?”
  
  “We’ve quit drinking champagne from ladies’ slippers. I would like to drink some from hers.”
  


• “That’s why I’m here. Once or twice I have kicked a hat that you had hid a brick in, and I don’t want a sore toe.”

—Rex Stout, Murder by the Book

• “Anyone who cuts a five-inch gash in the territory of the eighth rib may be presumed to have maleficent intentions, and probably pertinacity to boot.”

—Rex Stout, "Omit Flowers", in Three Doors to Death

• “From the first day he glimpsed her and heard her speak, he got drowned. He didn’t even float, he just laid there on the bottom.”


• “He has a mood every hour on the hour, daily including Sundays and holidays. He never does a damn thing, even pick flowers.”


• “May I sit down?”
  
  Father, daughter, and son said “No” simultaneously.
  
  Wolfe went to a wide upholstered number and sat. “I must overrule you,” he said, “because this is an emergency.”
  

—Rex Stout, "Door to Death", in Three Doors to Death

• “I have never known it to fail,” he remarked, “that you can be counted on for a headache.”


• “Who says it was murder?”
  
  “I have reached that conclusion.”
  
  “Then that’s settled.” Cramer’s sarcasm was usually a little heavy. “Have you bothered any about evidence?”
  
  “I have none.”
  
  “Good. Evidence just clutters a murder up.”
  


• “[Y]ou couldn’t have been dumber if you’d worked at it for a year.”

—Rex Stout, "The Gun with Wings", in Curtains for Three

• The name plopped in the middle of us like a paratrooper at a picnic.
  

—Rex Stout, "Bullet for One", in Curtains for Three

• “I’ll tell you what it is. It is the malefic spite of a sullen little soul and a crabbed and envious mind. It is the childish rancor of a primacy too often challenged and offended. It is the feeble wriggle—”
  

—Rex Stout, "Disguise for Murder", in Curtains for Three

Comments

[princessofgeeks]

*nods*

Yes, we are simply asked to take on board Archie's opinions of them.