"This is a pleasant surprise, Archie. I would
not have believed it. That of course is the advantage of being a pessimist; a
pessimist gets nothing but pleasant surprises, an optimist nothing but
unpleasant.” ― Rex Stout, Fer-de-Lance (1934)
(The image accompanying this post is a 1973
publicity photograph of the creator of the great detective Nero Wolfe, taken by
Jill Krementz to promote Stout’s book A
Family Affair.)
