Agatha Christie Quotes - Page 5

I know there's a proverb which that says 'To err is human,' but a human error is nothing to what a computer can do if it tries.

It has been my experience, that women possess little or no pride where love affairs are concerned. Pride is a quality often on their lips, but not apparent in their actions.

The amount of women you hear say, "If Donald—or Arthur—or whatever his name was—had only lived." And I sometimes think but if he had, he'd have been a stout, unromantic, short-tempered, middle-aged husband as likely as not.

If you place your head in a lion's mouth, then you cannot complain one day if he happens to bite it off.

For somewhere," said Poirot to himself, indulging in an absolute riot of mixed metaphors, "there is in the hay a needle, and among the sleeping dogs there is one on whom I shall put my foot, and by shooting the arrows into the air, one will come down and hit a glass house!

The eye is diverted from the real business, it is caught by the spectacular action that means nothing--nothing at all.

Poirot said "you will find,M.le docteur,if you have much to do with cases of this kind,that they all resemble each other in one thing.""what is that?" I asked curiously"everyone concerned in them has something to hide

I like a good detective story," he said. "But, you know, they begin in the wrong place! They begin with the murder. But the murder is the end. The  story begins long before that—years before sometimes with all the causes and events that bring certain people to a certain place at a certain time on a certain day.

Everything must be taken into account. If the fact will not fit the theory---let the theory go.

I like living. I have sometimes been wildly despairingly acutely miserable racked with sorrow but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing.

A man in love is a sorry spectacle.

The evidence of history is against you. The contemporary historian never writes such a true history as the historian of a later generation. It is a question of getting the true perspective, of seeing things in proportion.

A quiet secluded life in the country, with the possibility of being useful to people to whom it is easy to do good, and who are not accustomed to have it done to them; then work which one hopes may be of some use; then rest, nature, books, music, love for one’s neighbor — such is my idea of happiness.

I have always noticed that these artists and writers are very unbalanced

Money, money, money! I think about money morning, noon and night! I dare say it's mercenary of me, but there it is

Why shouldn't I hate her? She did the worst thing to me that anyone can do to anyone else. Let them believe that they're loved and wanted and then show them that it's all a sham.

How true is the saying that man was forced to invent work in order to escape the strain of having to think.

People bicker so and have such rows. Even if they're fond of each other, they still seem to have rows and not to mind a bit whether they have them in public or not.

Why harrow oneself by looking on the worst side?... Because it is sometimes necessary.

You have a great advantage as a writer, Monsieur,' said Poirot. 'You can relieve your feelings by expedient of the printed word. You have the power of the pen over your enemies.

I was tired of this silly joking about my 'speaking countenance'. I could keep a secret as well as anyone. Poirot had always persisted in the humiliating belief that I am a transparent character and that anyone can read what is passing in my mind.

...But even then you have to reckon with a criminal's chief vice.''What is that?'' Conceit. A criminal never believes that his crime can fail.

Business is based on the well-known principle of supply and demand. You want something, the other man has it. The only thing left to settle is the price.

The great thing in these cases is to keep an absolutely open mind. Most crimes, you see, are so absurdly simple.

That, of course, depends entirely on who you mean by 'they'. It's a very vague term. Who is or are 'they'? Is there such a thing, are there such persons as 'they'? We don't know. But I can tell you this. If the most popular explanation of 'they' is accepted, then these people work in very close, self-contained cells. They do that for their own security.~Jessop

But when a man is really in love he can't help looking like a sheep. Now whenever that young man looked he looked like a sheep I take back all is this morning. It is genuine.

The Roar of the engine penetrated through Bertram's Hotel from the street outside. Colonel Luscombe perceived that Ladislaus Malinowski was one of Elvira's heroes. "Well," he thought to himself, "better than one of those pop singers or crooners or long-haired Beatles or whatever they called themselves." Luscombe was old-fashioned in his views of young men.

A great many men are mad, and no one knows it. They do not know it themselves

Poirot, watching him, felt suddenly a doubt--an uncomfortable twinge. Was there, here, something that he had missed? Some richness of the spirit? Sadness crept over him. Yes, he should have become acquainted with the classics. Long ago. Now, alas, it was too late....

It's all very well to talk like that,” said Mr. Rafiel. “We, you say? What do you think I can do about it? I can't even walk without help. How can you and I set about preventing a murder? You're about a hundred and I'm a broken-up old crock.

We are ready to despair too soon, we are ready to say, ‘What’s the good of doing anything?’ Hope is the virtue we should cultivate most in this present day and age.

In my opinion, the state of mind of a community is always directly due to the influence of the man at the top.

You do think you know about everything," said her husband. I do," said Tuppence.

I like to see an angry Englishman," said Poirot. "They are very amusing. The more emotional they feel the less command they have of language.

Everything that has existed, lingers in the Eternity.

Why didn't they ask the Evans?

I've got a very nice staff here. People with patience, you know, and good temper, and not too brainy, because if you have people who are brainy, they are bound to be very impatient.

The only clue to what is in people's minds is in their behavior. If a man behaves strangely, oddly, is not himself--Then you suspect him?No. That is just what I mean. A man whose mind is evil and whose intentions are evil is conscious of that fact and he knows that he must conceal it all costs. He dare not, therefore, afford any unusual behavior.

Oh! Do not excite yourself. Shall I say that he interested me because he was trying to grow a mustache and as yet the result is poor." Poirot stroked his own magnificent mustache tenderly. "It is an art," he murmured, "the growing of the mustache! I have sympathy for all who attempt it.

To marry and have children, that is the common lot of women. Only one woman in a hundred--more, in a thousand, can make for herself a name and position as you have done.

Young men are sadly degenerate nowadays.

You are not the happy, unthinking child you have always appeared to be, accepting everything at its face value. You are not just one of the women of the household. You are Renisenb who wants to think for herself, who wonders about other people.

I always feel that young doctors are only too anxious too experiment. After they've whipped out all our teeth, and administered quantities of very peculiar glands, and removed bits of our insides, they then confess that nothing can be done for us. I really prefer the old-fashioned remedy of big black bottles of medicine. After all, one can always pour those down the sink.

One of the saddest things in life, is the things one remembers.

In fact-Dr. Sheppard!

Nobody knows what another person is thinking. They may imagine they do, but they are nearly always wrong.

A statesman in these days has a difficult task. He has to pursue the policy he deems advantageous to his country, but he has at the same time to recognize the force of popular feeling. Popular feeling is very often sentimental, muddleheaded, and eminently unsound, but it cannot be disregarded for all that.

Poirot," I said. "I have been thinking.""An admirable exercise my friend. Continue it.

It was due to his tact, to his judgment, to his sympathetic manipulation of human beings that the atmosphere had always been such a happy one... If there was a change, therefore, the change must be due to the man at the top.

Don’t go,” said Cedric. “Murder has made you practically one of the family.

It's a rotten job, but somebody's got to do it.

When the sea goes down, there will come from the mainland boats and men. And they will find ten dead bodies and an unsolved problem on Indian Island.

More children suffer from interference than from noninterference.

Oh, I'm not afraid of death! What have I got to live for after all? I suppose you believe it's very wrong to kill a person who has injured you-even if they've taken away everything you had in the world?

All Egypt is obsessed with death! And do you know why, Renisenb? Because we have eyes in our bodies, but none in our minds. We cannot conceive of a life other than this one - of a life after death. We can visualize only a continuation of what we know. We have no real belief in a God.

The truth must be quite plain, if one could just clear away the litter.

You would hate people if you were like me… If you weren’t wanted.

We are the same people as we were at three six ten or twenty years old. More noticeably so perhaps at six or seven because we were not pretending so much then.

Authors were shy, unsociable creatures, atoning for their lack of social aptitude by inventing their own companions and conversations.