Black Orchids. The Silent Speaker

У людей всегда есть причина что-нибудь скрывать.

Очевидность – дело сугубо субъективное. Очевидности всегда можно избежать, противопоставляя ей тонкость ума.

И называется она "брассокаттлея торнтони",- промурлыкал Вульф. - Очень мило!

Mrs. Boone looked at me, and I had the uncomfortable feeling that she was trying to find some sort of resemblance to her dead husband, he being gone and therefore no longer available for important decisions. I thought it might possibly help if I nodded at her reassuringly, so I did. - Archie Goodwin

– Но вы увидите, что я не так уж глуп!
– Это заявление ничем не подтверждается, – насупившись, отозвался Вульф.

Naturally everything I’m saying is not only true but provable, - Nero Wolfe

Anyhow I was telling the truth, and since I’m not very good at telling the truth I couldn’t very well expect him to believe me. - Archie Goodwin

“Instructions for the morning, sir?”
“Yes!” he called back. “Let me alone!”
Archie Goodwin & Nero Wolfe

The city employees, over a dozen of them, scattered around the room and stood looking as alert and intelligent as the facts of the case would permit, under the eye of the big boss, the P.C. himself. - Archie Goodwin

A woman who is not a fool is dangerous. - Nero Wolfe

...the divan would hold four comfortably, except that in a murder case three days old you don’t often find four people connected with it who are still in a frame of mind to sit together on the same piece of furniture. - Archie Goodwin

The way he takes an insult never depends on the insult but on how he happens to be feeling. - Archie Goodwin about Nero Wolfe

Frankly, I wish I could make my heart quit doing an extra thump when Wolfe says satisfactory, Archie. It’s childish. - Archie Goodwin

The reliance on his three per cent under par in lip tightness was not for the sake of what he might tell me, but what he might tell about me. - Archie Goodwin

He might have been taken for a vice-president of a trust company or a golf club steward. - Archie Goodwin

...everybody with a drink, including Mister, only his was non-alcoholic, or I wouldn't have stayed. What that bird would have done with a couple of Martinis under his fur would have been something to watch from an airplane. - Archie Goodwin

There is nothing in the world as indestructible as human dignity. That woman makes money killing time for fools. With it she pays me for rooting around in mud. Half of my share goes for taxes which are used to make bombs to blow people to pieces. Yet I am not without dignity. - Nero Wolfe

Up to then nothing had been threatened but his peace of mind or maybe his reputation, at most his life and liberty. But this was something else again; this threatened his property. It put stone in his heart and steel in his jaw. - Archie Goodwin

I do not deny that flowers are pretty, but a million flowers are not a million times prettier than one flower. - Archie Goodwin