Agatha Christie Quotations

These little grey cells. It is up to them.

Very few of us are what we seem.

A mother's love for her child is like nothing else in the world. It knows no law, no pity, it dares all things and crushes down remorselessly all that stands in its path.

One of the luckiest things that can happen to you in life is, I think, to have a happy childhood.

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 specialize in murders of quiet, domestic interest.

There is nothing more thrilling in this world, I think, than having a child that is yours, and yet is mysteriously a stranger.

The popular idea 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.

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

But surely for everything you have to love you have to pay some price.

The happy people are failures because they are on such good terms with themselves they don't give a damn.

One doesn't recognize the really important moments in one's life until it's too late.

There's too much tendency to attribute to God the evils that man does of his own free will.

The best time to plan a book is while you're doing the dishes.

Dogs are wise. They crawl away into a quiet corner and lick their wounds and do not rejoin the world until they are whole once more.

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.

Most successes are unhappy. That's why they are successes - they have to reassure themselves about themselves by achieving something that the world will notice.

Good advice is always certain to be ignored, but that's no reason not to give it.

I married an archaeologist because the older I grow, the more he appreciates me.

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.

Any woman can fool a man if she wants to and if he's in love with her.

I don't think necessity is the mother of invention. Invention, in my opinion, arises directly from idleness, possibly also from laziness - to save oneself trouble.

An archaeologist is the best husband a woman can have. The older she gets the more interested he is in her.

Never do anything yourself that others can do for you.

Evil is not something superhuman, it's something less than human.

If one sticks too rigidly to one's principles, one would hardly see anybody.

Too much mercy... often resulted in further crimes which were fatal to innocent victims who need not have been victims if justice had been put first and mercy second.

Curious things, habits. People themselves never knew they had them.

I live now on borrowed time, waiting in the anteroom for the summons that will inevitably come. And then - I go on to the next thing, whatever it is. One doesn't, luckily, have to bother about that.

Everything that has existed, lingers in the Eternity.

It is ridiculous to set a detective story in New York City. New York City is itself a detective story.

I've always believed in writing without a collaborator, because where two people are writing the same book, each believes he gets all the worry and only half the royalties.

Crime is terribly revealing. Try and vary your methods as you will, your tastes, your habits, your attitude of mind, and your soul is revealed by your actions.

But surely for everything you love you have to pay some price.

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.

Everyone is a potential murderer-in everyone there arises from time to time thewish to kill-though not the will to kill.

Nobody believes in magicians any more, nobody believes that anyone can come along and wave a wand and turn you into a frog. But if you read in the paper that by injecting certain glands scientists can alter your vital tissues and you'll develop froglike characteristics, well, everybody would believe that.

To all those who lead monotonous lives in the hope that they may experience at second hand the delights and dangers of adventure. [author's dedication]

There hung about her the restrained energy of a whiplash.

It is deplorable...to remove all the romance - all the mystery!

Any medical man who predicts exactly when a patient will die, or exactly how long he will live, is bound to make a fool of himself. The human factor is always incalculable. The weak have often unexpected powers of resistance, the strong sometimes succumb.

... evil was, perhaps, necessarily always more impressive than good.

To put it quite crudely ... the poor don't really know how the rich live, and the rich don't know how the poor live, and to find out is really enchanting to both of them.

Writers are diffident creatures -- they need encouragement.

The first time you do a thing is always exciting.

I think, myself, that one's memories represent those moments which, insignificant as they may seem, nevertheless represent the inner self and oneself as most really oneself.

It's so much nicer to be a secret and delightful sin to anybody than to be a feather in his cap.

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

But I know human nature, my friend, and I tell you that, suddenly confronted with the possibility of being tried for murder, the most innocent person will lose his head and do the most absurd things.

One does see so much evil in a village,' murmured Miss Marple in an explanatory voice.

Downstairs in the lounge, by the third pillar from the left, there sits an old lady with a sweet, placid, spinsterish face and a mind that has plumbed the depths of human iniquity and taken it all as in the day's work....where crime is concerned, she's the goods.

What's wrong with my proposition?" Poirot rose. "If you will forgive me for being personal-I do not like your face, M. Ratchett.

Achievement brings with it its own anticlimax.

There is something about conscious tact that is very irritating.

Liking is more important than loving. It lasts. I want what is between us to last, Luke. I don't want us just to love each other and marry and get tired of each other and then want to marry some one else." "Oh! my dear Love, I know. You want reality. So do I. What's between us will last for ever because it's founded on reality.

That is what I mean. A bath! The receptacle of porcelain, one turns the taps and fills it, one gets in, one gets out and ghoosh - ghoosh - ghoosh, the water goes down the waste pipe!" "M. Poirot are you quite mad?" "No, I am extremely sane.

I am all that there is of the most real.

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.

One never quite allows for the moron in our midst.

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?

I always think loyalty's such a tiresome virtue.

Every murderer is probably somebody's old friend.

Curious things, habits. People themselves never knew they had them. [Witness for the Prosecution, also published in The Hound of Death and Other Stories.]

I have always been so sure - too sure... But now I am very humble and I say like a little child: "I do not know..."

Many years ago, when I was once saying sadly to Max it was a pity I couldn't have taken up archaeology when I was a girl, so as to be more knowledgeable on the subject, he said, 'Don't you realize that at this moment you know more about prehistoric pottery than any woman in England?'

The lure of the past came up to grab me. To see a dagger slowly appearing, with its gold glint, through the sand was romantic. The carefulness of lifting pots and objects from the soil filled me with a longing to be an archaeologist myself.

Hercule Poirot: I am an imbecile. I see only half of the picture. Miss Lemon: I don't even see that.

The saddest thing in life and the hardest to live through, is the knowledge that there is someone you love very much whom you cannot save from suffering.

There is no greater mistake in life than seeing things or hearing them at the wrong time.

When a man is really in love he can't help looking like a sheep.

Who is there who has not felt a sudden startled pang at reliving an old experience or feeling an old emotion?

If you are to be Hercule Poirot, you must think of everything.

Women can accept the fact that a man is a rotter, a swindler, a drug taker, a confirmed liar, and a general swine, without batting an eyelash, and without its impairing their affection for the brute in the least. Women are wonderful realists.

Trains are wonderful.... To travel by train is to see nature and human beings, towns and churches and rivers, in fact, to see life.

With thought, all problems can be resolved.

He was very much a man of moods, possibly owing to what is styled the artistic temperment. I have never seen, myself, why the possession of artistic ability should be supposed to excuse a man from a decent exercise of self-control.

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.

To win a war is as disasterous as to lose one.

In the midst of life, we are in death.

I'm sure you have a theme: the theme of your life. You can embellish it or desecrate it, but it's your theme, and as long as you follow it, you will experience harmony and peace of mind.

An ugly voice repels me where an ugly face would not.

She was a lucky woman who had established a happy knack of writing what quite a lot of people wanted to read.

I have often had occasion to notice how, where a direct question would fail to elicit a response, a false assumption brings instant information in the form of a contradiction.

Our weapon is our knowledge. But remember, it may be a knowledge we may not know that we possess.

Any coincidencce is worth noticing. You can throw it away later if it is only a coincidence.

The heart of a woman who loves will forgive many blows.

It is the brain, the little gray cells on which one must rely. One must seek the truth within--not without." ~ Poirot

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

I looked at her. Sheila was my girl--the girl I wanted--and wanted for keeps. But it wasn't any use having illusions about her. Sheila was a liar and probably always would be a liar. It was her way of fighting for survival--the quick easy glib denial. It was a child's weapon--and she'd probably never got out of using it. If I wanted Sheila, I must accept her as she was--be at hand to prop up the weak places. We've all got our weak places. Mine were different from Sheila's, but they were there.

I often wonder why the whole world is so prone to generalise. Generalisations are seldom if ever true and are usually utterly inaccurate.

To rush into explanations is always a sign of weakness.

One is alone when the last one who remembers is gone.

Who are you? You don't belong to the police?' 'I am better than the police,' said Poirot. He said it without conscious arrogance. It was, to him, a simple statement of fact.

Vous eprouves trop d'emotion, Hastings, It affects your hands and your wits. Is that a way to fold a coat? And regard what you have done to my pyjamas. If the hairwash breaks what will befall them?' 'Good heavens, Poirot,' I cried, 'this is a matter of life and death. What does it matter what happens to our clothes?' 'You have no sense of proportion Hastings. We cannot catch a train earlier than the time that it leaves, and to ruin one's clothes will not be the least helpful in preventing a murder.

People who can be very good can be very bad too.

A weak man in a corner is more dangerous than a strong man. (Inspector Miller)

Fey...a Scotch word...It means the kind of exalted happiness that comes before disaster. You know--it's too good to be true.

Your not reliable. You wouldn't be at all a comfortable sort of person to live with.

It is odd how, when you have a secret belief of your own which you do not wish to acknowledge, the voicing of it by someone else will rouse you to a fury of denial.

Lie is more worth living, more full of interest when you are likely to lose it. It shouldn't be, perhaps, but it is. When you're young and strong and healthy, and life stretches ahead of you, living isn't really important at all. It's young people who commit suicide easily, out of despair from love, sometimes from sheer anxiety and worry. But old people know how valuable life is and how interesting. - Jane Marple