Nero Wolfe

A woman who is not a fool is dangerous.

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— You're an incredible man. Utterly incredible. I didn't think you could do it. Incredible! Is there anything you can't do?
— Uh, yes, madam, there is. I couldn't put sense in a fool's brain.

— I thought you were afraid of nobody and nothing.
— I can dodge folly without backing into fear.

Obviously, any woman who eats by sufferance without a legal contract would prefer not to eat alone.

Then this is a remarkable coincidence. In a world that operates largely at random coincidences are to be expected but each one of them must always be mistrusted.

— During the seven months that you lived with Miss Usher did she have any callers?
— She never had any.
— Do you mean to say that she had no friends... men or women?
— I never saw any. She never even had a date; she never even got any phone calls. I used to tell her, "Faith, that's no way to live just crawling around like a worm like that."

Archie... I said it is vainglorious to reproach yourself for lack of omniscience. The same is true for omnipotence.

— But you were an agent of the Austrian government?
— As a boy. I quit.
— And then you joined the Montenegrin army?
— Still a boy, immature. I believed then that all misguided people should be shot. I shot some.

— There's no discipline in this country, Mr. Wolfe.
— I wouldn't say that. We submit to traffic cops and sanitary codes. We are extremely fond of certain liberties.

I lie only when I must...

— Intimate or not, you’ve known this girl for three years. Did she kill that man?
— Yes and no.
— That doesn’t help.
— Yes, chiefly because she asked me to come here, change my story and back hers up.
— I didn’t kill him!
— And the no is a little less direct you see, when a man gets a girl pregnant, her normal reaction is to make him marry her, not kill him. See, the thing she wants most is a father for the baby, and a dead one is no good.
— That’s silly, I’m not pregnant. There’s only one way a girl can get pregnant, and it couldn’t have been that with me because it’s never happened.

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- Intimate or not, you’ve known this girl for three years. Did she kill that man?
- Yes and no.
- That doesn’t help.
- Yes, chiefly because she asked me to come here, change my story and back hers up.
- I didn’t kill him!
- And the no is a little less direct you see, when a man gets a girl pregnant, her normal reaction is to make him marry her, not kill him. See, the thing she wants most is a father for the baby, and a dead one is no good.
- That’s silly, I’m not pregnant. There’s only one way a girl can get pregnant, and it couldn’t have been that with me because it’s never happened.

Anyone lies when the alternative is intolerable.

Nothing is as pitiable as a man afraid of a woman.

Had I remained lean, I would be dead by now. Like you, I was once idiotically romantic. But was cured me; war pickles men in a bride of disgust and dread.