Agatha Christie Quotes - Page 2

Plots come to me at such odd moments, when I am walking along the street, or examining a hat shop…suddenly a splendid idea comes into my head.

Youth is a failing only tooeasily outgrown.

She's very selfish. Not exactly self-centered, but totally indifferent to everyone and everything. Don't you agree?' 'I don't think that's possible,' said Mr Satterthwaite, slowly. 'I mean everyone's interest must go somewhere.

Who was there to guard youth from pain and death - youth who could not, who had never been able to, guard itself? Did they know too little? Or was it that they knew too much, and therefore thought they knew it all?

I think Mrs. Leidner seems happier already from just talking about it. That's always a help, you know. It's bottling things up that makes them get on your nerves.

I suppose without curiosity a man would be a tortoise. Very comfortable life, a tortoise has. Goes to sleep all winter and doesn't eat anything more than grass as far as I know, to live all the summer. Not an interesting life perhaps, but a very peaceful one.

My flute, M. Poirot, is my oldest companion. When everything else fails, music remains.

One must always proceed with method. I made an error of judgment asking you that question. Toeach man his own knowledge. You could tell me the details of the patient's physical appearance- nothing there would escape you. If I wanted information about the papers on the desk, Mr. Raymond would have noticed anything there was to see. To find out about the fire, I must ask the man whose business is to observe such things. - Detective Hercule Poirot to Doctor Sheppard

I'm going to marry him. And if he thinks he can get divorced and married every two or three years in the approved Hollywood fashion, well, he never made a bigger mistake in his life. He's going to marry and stick to me.

But it is not always the people who say most who do most.

I have no pity for myself either. So let it be Veronal. But I wish Hercule Poirot had never retired from work and come here to grow vegetable marrows.

Everybody said, "Follow your heart". I did, it got broken

There are, of course, the people who revolve around themselves--but I agree with you, she's not one of that kind. She's totally uninterested in herself. And yet she's got a strong character--there must be something. I thought at first it was her art--but it isn't. I've never met anyone so detached from life. That's dangerous.''Dangerous? What do you mean?''Well, you see--it must mean an obsession of some kind, and obsessions are always dangerous.

Use that fluff of yours you call a brain.

At the small table, sitting very upright, was one of the ugliest old ladies he had ever seen. It was an ugliness of distinction - it fascinated rather than repelled.

Then there are some minor points that strike me as suggestive - for instance, the position of Mrs. Hubbard's sponge bag, the name of Mrs. Armstrong's mother, the detective methods of Mr. Hardman, the suggestion of Mr. MacQueen that Ratchett himself destroyed the charred note we found, Princess Dragomiroff's Christian name, and a grease spot on a Hungarian passport.

Those words of hers had meant nothing - you could not dismiss [however] a human being so easily.

All life is a jest, Imhotep - and it is death who laughs last. Do you not hear it at every feast? Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow you die.

Mon cher docteur! Do you not think I know the female mentality? The village gossip, it is based always, always on the relations of the sexes. If a man poisons his wife in order to travel to the North Pole or to enjoy the peace of a bachelor existence—it would not interest his fellow-villagers for a minute!

A meal should always lie lightly on the estomac," said Poirot. "It should not be so heavy as to paralyze thought.

I believe at least in one of the chief tenets of the Christian faith--contentment with a lowly place. I am a doctor and I know that ambition--the desire to succeed--to have power--leads to most ills of the human soul. If the desire is realized it leads to arrogance, violence and final satiety; and if it is denied--ah! if it is denied--let all the asylums for the insane rise up and give their testimony! The are filled with human beings who were unable to face being mediocre, insignificant, ineffective and who therefore created for themselves ways of escape from reality so to be shut off from life itself forever.

It is so unkind--' 'Perhaps. But sometimes a compulsion comes over one to speak the truth!

Eh bien, then, you are crazy, or appear crazy or you think you are crazy, and possibly you may be crazy.

There hung about her the restrained energy of a whiplash.

That's where all the trouble in life comes from. Thinking.

Murder can sometimes seem justified, but it is murder all the same. You are truthful and clear-minded--face the truth, mademoiselle! Your friend died in the last resort, because she had not the courage to live. We may sympathize with her. We may pity her. But the fact remains--the act was hers--not another.

There was only one thing about his own appearance which really pleased Hercule Poirot, and that was the profusion of his moustaches, and the way they responded to grooming and treatment and trimming. They were magnificent. He knew of nobody else who had any moustache half as good.

There is something about the defencelessness of youth that moves me to tears. Youth is so vulnerable. It is so ruthless--so sure. So generous and so demanding.

But what really happens after you are dead - that is what I want to know?I cannot tell you Renisenb. You should ask a priest these questions.He would just give me the usual answers. I want to know.We shall none of us know until we are dead ourselves.

Ladies tell their nurses things in a sudden burst of confidence, and then, afterwards, they feel uncomfortable about it and wish they hadn't! It's only human nature.

And yet," said Poirot, "suppose an accident-""Ah, no, my friend-""From your point of view it would be regrettable, I agree. But nevertheless let us just for one moment suppose it. Then, perhaps, all these here are linked together - by death.

Living alone, with no one to consult or talk to, one might easily become melodramatic, and imagine things which had no foundation on fact.

Sensationalism dies quickly, fear is long-lived.

...It was borne in upon her audience that the outside of Jane's charming head was distinctly superior to the inside.

A man in love is an awful sight.

... suppose if something very terrible had happened, so terrible as to be almost unbearable, one might get like that. One might run away from reality into a half world of one's own and then, of course, after a time, one wouldn't be able to get back...

Men don't want to be brothers - they may someday, but they don't now. My belief in the brotherhood of man died the day I arrived in London last week, when I observed the people standing in a Tube train resolutely refuse to move up and make room for those who entered. You won't turn people into angels by appealing to their better natures just yet awhile - but by judicious force you can coerce them into behaving more or less decently to one another to go on with. I will still believe in the brotherhood of man, but it's not coming yet awhile. Say another ten thousand years or so. It's no good being impatient. Evolution is a slow process.

What an absurdity to go and bury oneself in South America, where they are always having revolutions.

Mrs. Baker's social manner was almost robotlike in its perfection. All her comments and remarks were natural, normal, everyday currency, but one had a suspicion that the whole thing was like an actor playing a part for perhaps the seven hundredth time. It was an automatic performance, completely divorced from what Mrs. Baker might really have been thinking or feeling.

Women were very queer. Unexpectedly cruel and unexpectedly kind.

A susceptible child is capable of great hero worship, and a young mind can easily be obsessed by an idea which persists into adult life.

Well, people are like that too. THey create a false door - to deceive. If they are conscious of weakness, of inefficiency, they make an imposing door of self-assertion, of bluster, of overwhelming authority - and, after a time, they get to believe in it themselves. They think, and everybody thinks, that they are like that. But behind that door, Renisenb, is bare rock... And so when reality comes and touches them with the feather of truth - their true self reasserts itself.

I suppose what I really am is restless. I want to go everywhere, see everything, do everything. I want to find something. Yes, that's it, I want to find something.

You are, madame, so perfectly armoured, so completely sure of yourself.''Now I wonder, if I am to take that as a compliment?''It is, perhaps, a warning--not to treat life with arrogance.

Un archeologo è il miglior marito che una donna possa avere: più lei diventa vecchia, più lui s'interessa a lei.

Evil never goes unpunished, Monsieur. But the punishment is sometimes secret.

When the sun shines you cannot see the moon," he said. "But when the sun is gone ah,when the sun is gone.

The best time for planning a book is while you're doing the dishes.

Yes, it was dangerous, but we are not put into this world, Mr. Burton, to avoid danger when an important fellow creature's life is at stake. You understand me?

What can I say at seventy-five? "Thank God for my good life,and for all the love that has been given to me.

I'm sorry, but I do hate this differentiation between the sexes. 'The modern girl has a thoroughly businesslike attitude to life' That sort of thing. It's not a bit true! Some girls are businesslike and some aren't. Some men are sentimental and muddle-headed, others are clear-headed and logical. There are just different types of brains.

Do you believe in the value of truth, my dear, or don’t you?”“Of course I believe in the truth,” said Rhoda, staring.“Yes, you say that, but perhaps you haven’t thought about it. The truth hurts sometimes – and destroys one’s illusions.”“I’d rather have it all the same.” said Rhoda. “So would I. But I don’t know that we’re wise.”Mrs. Oliver; Rhoda Dawes

Besides a burial service is rather lovely. Makes you feel uplifted, the grief is real. It makes you feel awful but it does something to you. I mean, it works it out like perspiration.

Death was for-the other people.

the elephant can remember.

Mr Rycroft said nothing. It was so difficult not to say the wrong thing to Captain Wyatt that it was usually safer not to reply at all.

She breathed an enormous sigh, looked at Poirot, Looked away, and suddenly blurted out, "You're too old. Nobody told me you were so old. I really don't want to be rude but - there it is. You're too old. I'm really sorry." She turned abruptly and blundered out of the room, rather like a desperate moth in lamplight. Poirot, his mouth open, heard the bang of the front door. He ejaculated: "Non d'un nom d'un nom...

Mademoiselle, I speak as a friend. Bury your dead! ... Give up the past! Turn to the future! What is done is done. Bitterness will not undo it.''I'm sure that would suit dear Linnet admirably.'Poirot made a gesture. 'I am not thinking of her at this moment! I am thinking of you. You have suffered - yes - but what you are doing now will only prolong the suffering.

I believe, Messieurs, in loyalty---to one's friends and one's family and one's caste.

A man when he is making up to anybody can be cordial and gallant and full of little attentions and altogether charming. But when a man is really in love he can't help looking like a sheep.