Great Words from a Great Mystery Author

I discovered the Nero Wolfe mysteries by Rex Stout long ago, and I loved them all. Years before I wrote for publication, I’d scribble down sentences I liked from the books I read.

In case you haven’t read the Nero Wolfe books, Wolfe was a brilliant crime solver and Archie Goodwin, was his brilliant assistant. (In a TV series several years ago, Timothy Hutton played Archie Goodwin.)

Stout began writing his Nero Wolfe books in the 1930′s. In 1937, his novel, The Hand in the Glove, introduced Theodolinda “Dol” Bonner, a female private detective who appeared in other Wolfe stories. She was one of the first, if not the first, woman PI as a protagonist in a book.

But, I digress. I wanted to give you this quotation I wrote down years ago because it struck me as being memorable.

The words were spoken by the character, Archie Goodwin. He said: “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.”

Takeaway Truth

Now that’s a memorable sentence!