Agatha Christie Quotes

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

Speech, so a wise old Frenchman said to me once, is an invention of man's to prevent him from thinking. It is also an infallible means of discovering that which he wishes to hide.

When a man's neck's in danger, he doesn't stop to think too much about sentiment.

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

I loved her- I always loved her- no matter what she was-I wanted her safe- not shut up- a prisoner for life, eating her heart out. And we did keep her safe- for many years" Phillip Stark

What are the years from twenty to forty? Fettered and bound by personal and emotional relationships. That's bound to be. That's living. But later there's a new stage. You can think, observe life, discover something about other people and the truth about yourself. Life becomes real--significant. You see it as a whole. Not just one scene--the scene you, as an actor, are playing. No man or woman is actually himself (or herself) till after forty-five. That's when individuality has a chance.

That was what murder was-as easy as that!But afterwards you went on remembering...

Where large sums of money are concerned, it is advisable to trust nobody.

E: When one has at last reached freedom, can one even contemplate going back?HC: But if it is not possible to go back, or to choose to go back, then it is not freedom!~Ericsson; Hilary Craven

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

In fact-Dr. Sheppard!

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.

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.

This was genius at close quarters, and genius had that something above normal in it that was a great strain upon the ordinary mind and feeling. All five were different from each other, yet each had that curious quality of burning intensity, the single-mindedness of purpose that made such a terrifying impression. She did not know whether it were a quality of brain or rather a quality of outlook, of intensity. But each of them, she thought, was in his or her way a passionate idealist.

She looked at them with shining eyes. Her chin went up. She said: "You regard it as impossible that a sinner should be struck down by the wrath of God! I do not!" The judge stroked his chin. He murmured in a slightly ironic voice: "My dear lady, in my experience of ill-doing, Providence leaves the work of conviction and chastisement to us mortals-and the process is often fraught with difficulties. There are no short cuts.

If you care for money too much, it is only the money you see, everything else is in shadow.

The things she said seemed to have very little relation to the last thing she had said a minute before. She was the sort of person, Tommy thought, who might know a great deal more than she chose to reveal.

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.

Use your little grey cells mon ami" (Hercule Poirot in 'The Mysterious Affair At Styles')

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.

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

... one may live in a big house and yet have no comfort.

The human mind prefers to be spoonfed with the thoughts of others but deprived of such nourishment it will reluctantly begin to think for itself- and such thinking remember is original thinking and may have valuable results.

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

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

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.

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

Somehow, the more I get older, and the more I see of people and sadness and illness and everything, the sorrier I get for everyone.

The popular view that a child forgets easily is not an accurate one. Many people go right through life in the grip of an idea which has been impressed on them in very tender years.

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.

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.

Bad habit, lunch. A banana and a water biscuit is all any sane healthy man should need in the middle of the day.

I should have known when I first saw that picture. For it is a very remarkable picture. It is the picture of a murderess painted by her victim-it is the picture of a girl watching her lover dies.

You say your life is your own. But can you dare to ignore the chance that you are taking part in a gigantic drama under the orders of a divine Producer? Your cue may not come till the end of the play--it may be totally unimportant, a mere walking-on part, but upon it may hang the issues of the play if you do not give the cue to another player. The whole edifice may crumple. You as you, may not matter to anyone in the world, but you as a person in a particular place may matter unimaginably.

There are questions that you don't ask because you're afraid of the answers to them.

It is a curious thought, but it is only when you see people looking ridiculous that you realize just how much you love them.

I gather," he added, "that you've never had much time to study the classics?""That is so.""Pity. Pity. You've missed a lot. Everyone should be made to study the classics, if I had my way."Poirot shrugged his shou

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.

Once I went professionally to an archaeological expedition- and I learnt something there. In the course of an excavation, when something comes up out of the ground, evEryThing is cleared away very carefully all around it. You take away the loose earth, and you scare here and there with a knife until finally your object is there, all alone, ready to be drawn and photographed with no extraneous matter confusing it. That is what I have been seeking TO do- clear away the extraneous matter so that we can see the truth-the naked shining truth.

I did not deceive you, mon ami. At most, I permitted you to deceive yourself.

Why do you decry the world we live in? There are good people in it. Isn't muddle a better breeding ground for kindliness and individuality than a world order that's imposed, a world order that may be right today and wrong tomorrow? I would rather have a world of kindly, faulty, human beings, than a world of superior robots who've said goodbye to pity and understanding and sympathy.

I help those who can help themselves.

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.

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 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.

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

Sitting here, literally amongst the dead, reckoning up gains and losses, casting accounts, I have come to see gains that cannot be reckoned in terms of wealth, and losses that are more damaging than loss of a crop... I look at the River and I see the lifeblood of Egypt that has existed before we lived and that will exist after we die... Life and death, Renisenb, are not of such great account.

You are lucky, Renisenb. You have found the happiness that is inside everybody's own heart. To most women, happiness means coming and going, busied over small affairs. It is care for one's children and laughter and conversation and quarrels with other women and alternate love and anger with a man. It is made up of small things strung together like beads on a string.

What I think is a different matter. Maybe I think some rather curious things—but until thinking's got you somewhere it's no use talking about it.

Everything is possible, isn't it? The world soon teaches one that!

Discussions of death and such matters do more to unlock the human tongue than any other subject.

Sensationalism dies quickly, fear is long-lived.

The truth is, that one doesn't really know anything about anybody. Not even the people who are nearest to you...''Isn't that going a little too far--exaggerating too much?''I don't think it is. When you think of people, it is in the image you have made of them for yourself.

People more often kill those they love than those they hate. Possibly because only the people you love can really make life unendurable to you.

... go down to the country, take a house, get interested in local politics, in local scandal, in village gossip. Take an inquisitive and violent interest in your neighbours.

And how do you know that these fine begonias are not of equal importance?

And anyway who the devil should I want to murder?""That would be a very good question," said Miss Marple. "I have not yet had the pleasure of sufficient conversation with you to evolve a theory as to that."Mr. Rafter's smile broadened."Conversations with you might be dangerous," he said."Conversations are always dangerous, if you have something to hide," said Miss Marple.

... Good gracious, Jerry, you'll probably have to marry the girl.'Joanna was half serious, half laughing.It was at that moment that I made a very important discovery.'Damn it all,' I said. 'I don't mind if I do. In fact - I should like it.'A very funny expression came over Joanna's face. She got up and said dryly, as she went toward the door, 'Yes, I've known that for some time...'She left me standing, glass in hand, aghast at my new discovery.

That is the word of reality - need.

One little Indian left all alone, he went out and hanged himself and then there were none.