The Westing Game

“Life, too, is senseless unless you know who you are, what you want, and which way the wind blows.”

“Smiling without good reason is demeaning.”

“The poor are crazy, the rich just eccentric. - James Shin Hoo”

“Hi Sandy, I won!”

“I remember the will said, 'May God thy gold refine.' That must be from the Bible.""Shakespeare," Turtle said. All quotations were either from the Bible or Shakespeare.”

“Senseless, you say? Death is senseless yet makes way for the living. Life, too, is senseless unless you know who you are, what you want, and which way the wind blows.”

“Your trouble comes from years of wearing the wrong kind of shoes. - Jake Wexler”

“Angela could not be the bomber, not that sweet, pretty thing. Thing? Is that how she regarded that young woman, as a thing? And what had she ever said to her except "I hear you're getting married, Angela" or "How pretty you look, Angela." Had anyone asked her about her ideas, her hopes, her plans? If I had been treated like that I'd have used dynamite, not fireworks; no, I would have just walked out and kept right on going. But Angela was different.”

“The sun sets in the west (just about everyone knows that), but Sunset Towers faced east. Strange!”

“Grace sat down where the chair wasn't.”

“Sunset Towers faced east and had no towers.”

“Friday was back to normal, if the actions of suspicious would-be heirs competing for a two-hundred-million-dollar prize could be considered normal.”

“Angela Wexler, person”

“She could have been an interior decorator, a good one, too, if it wasn’t for the pressing demands of so on and so forth.”

“You, too, may strike it rich who dares to play the Westing game.”

“Hello, Jake, I'm glad you could come," Sunny (as Madame Hoo was now called) said, shaking the hand of the chairman of the State Gambling Commission."Boom!" Jake Wexler replied.”

“Jake Wexler, standing or sitting when not lying down”

“You can't read my shorthand because I wrote in Polish.”

“Can you stand on your legs?” Sydelle Pulaski asked. “Can you walk at all?”People never asked Chris those questions; they whispered them to his parents behind his back. “N-n-no. Why?”“What better disguise for a thief or a murderer than a wheelchair, the perfect alibi.”Chris enjoyed being taken for the criminal type. Now they really were friends.”

“TURTLE SPENT THE night at the bedside of eighty-five-year-old Julian R. Eastman. T. R. Wexler had a master’s degree in business administration, an advanced degree in corporate law, and had served two years as legal counsel to the Westing Paper Products Corporation. She had made one million dollars in the stock market, lost it all, then made five million more.”

“Hello, Jake, I’m so glad you could come,” Sunny (as Madame Hoo was now called) said, shaking the hand of the chairman of the State Gambling Commission.”

“Hey Chris, bet you don't know the Latin name of the red-headed woodpecker."That was a hard one. Chris had to say Melanerpes erythrocephalus very slowly.”

“TENTH • Each pair in attendance will now receive an envelope containing a set of clues. No two sets of clues are alike. It is not what you have, it’s what you don’t have that counts.”

“Frenssh-fry”

“It is not what you have, it’s what you don’t have that counts.”

“Today I have gathered together my nearest and dearest, my sixteen nieces and nephews (Sit down, Grace Windsor Wexler!) to view the body of your Uncle Sam for the last time. Tomorrow its ashes will be scattered to the four winds. I, Samuel W. Westing, hereby swear that I did not die of natural causes. My life was taken from me–by one of you!”

“Sandy fidgeted with his pen. “There’s something I didn’t write down. Maybe I shouldn’t tell you, you being a judge and all, but, well, Jake Wexler… he’s a bookie.”No, he should not have told her. “A small-time operator, I’m sure, Mr. McSouthers,” the judge replied coldly. “It can have no bearing on the matter before us. Sam Westing manipulated people, cheated workers, bribed officials, stole ideas, but Sam Westing never smoked or drank or placed a bet. Give me a bookie any day over such a fine, upstanding, clean-living man.”

“From the side window smoke could be seen rising from the Westing house, but Sydelle Pulaski did not notice.”

“Sandy”

“No one ever notices Sydelle Pulaski,” she muttered, “but now they will. Now they will.”