Talk:The Mother Hunt

by Rex Stout (1963)

Want to Add Your Own Quotation to This Webpage?

It's so simple! Just press the tab with the + sign at the top of this webpage, and off you go!

Chapter 1, page 2 (Bantam edition, 1975)

“How old are you?”

That was for my benefit. He had a triple conviction: that a) his animus towards women made it impossible for him to judge any single specimen; that b) I needed only an hour with any woman alive to tag her; and that c) he could help out by asking some blunt impertinent question, his favourite one being how old are you. It’s hopeless to try to set him right.

Chapter 2, page 12

That took some fancy understanding. I sat and worked on it while I finished the martini, four or five minutes, got up and put my glass on the bar, touching hers to show I understood, which I didn’t, and departed.

Chapter 3, page 19

With all the trick gadgets they have hatched, there may be one you could attach to Wolfe and me and find out if he riles me more than I do him or vice versa, but we haven’t got one, so I don’t know.

Archie and Fritz discuss cinnamon, chapter 4, pp. 21-2

“No,” I said firmly. “I’ve decided it’s an aphrodisiac.”

“Then for you it would be – how is it? Taking coal somewhere.”

“Coals to Newcastle. That’s not the point, but you mean well and I thank you.”

Chapter 7, page 48

I could list five good reasons why I should have quit that job long ago, but I could list six, equally good, why I shouldn’t and haven’t. Turning it around, I could list two reasons, maybe three, why Wolfe should fire me, and ten why he shouldn’t and doesn’t. Of the ten, the big one is that if I wasn’t around he might be sleeping under a bridge and eating scraps. He hates to work. It has never been said right out, by either of us, that at least half of my salary is for poking him, but it doesn’t have to be.