Agatha Christie Quotes - Page 4

There hung about her the restrained energy of a whiplash.
Agatha Christie
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.
Agatha Christie
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?
Agatha Christie
It often seems to me that's all detective work is, wiping out your false starts and beginning again.""Yes, it is very true, that. And it is just what some people will not do. They conceive a certain theory, and everything has to fit into that theory. If one little fact will not fit it, they throw it aside. But it is always the facts that will not fit in that are significant.
Agatha Christie
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.
Agatha Christie
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.
Agatha Christie
She didn’t want to die. She couldn’t imagine wanting to die…Death was for—for other people.
Agatha Christie
HC: You think I shall differently tomorrow? [about suicide]J: People do.HC: Yes, perhaps. If you're doing things in a mood of hot despair. But when it's cold despair, it's different. I've nothing to live for, you see.~Hilary Craven; Jessop
Agatha Christie
I remember one teacher there -- I can't recall her name now. She was short and spare, and I remember her eager jutting chin. Quite unexpectedly one day (in the middle, I think, of an arithmetic lesson) she suddenly launched forth on a speech on life and religion. "All of you," she said, "every one of you -- will pass through a time when you will face despair. If you never face despair, you will never have faced, or become, a Christian, or known a Christian life. To be a Christian you must face and accept the life that Christ faced and lived; you must enjoy things as he enjoyed things; be as happy as he was at the marriage at Canaan, know the peace and happiness that it means to be in harmony with God and with God's will. But you must also know, as he did, what it means to be alone in the Garden of Gethsemane, to feel that all your friends have forsaken you, that those you love and trust have turned away from you, and that God Himself has forsaken you. Hold on then to the belief that that is not the end. If you love, you will suffer, and if you do not love, you do not know the meaning of a Christian life." She then returned to the problems of compound interest ...
Agatha Christie
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.
Agatha Christie
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.
Agatha Christie
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.
Agatha Christie
Everybody said, "Follow your heart". I did, it got broken
Agatha Christie
We do all these things when we are young. The poise, the savoir faire, it comes later.
Agatha Christie
A man travels fastest who travels alone.
Agatha Christie
One is alone when the last one who remembers is gone. I have nephews and nieces and kind friends---but there's no one who knew me as a young girl---non one who belongs to the old days. I've been alone for quite a long time now.
Agatha Christie
A little difficult to know where you were with Elinor. She didn't reveal much of what she thought and felt about things. He liked that about her. He hated people who reeled off their thoughts and feelings to you, who took it for granted that you wanted to know all their mechanism. Reserve was always more interesting.
Agatha Christie
What an absurdity to go and bury oneself in South America, where they are always having revolutions.
Agatha Christie
All three wore the air of superiority assumed by people who are already in a place when studying new arrivals.
Agatha Christie
Sometimes, as a great treat, I was allowed to remove Nursie's snowy ruffled cap. Without it, she somehow retreated into private life and lost her official status. Then, with elaborate care, I would tie a large blue satin ribbon round her head - with enormous difficulty and holding my breath, because tying a bow is no easy matter for a four-year-old. After which I would step back and exclaim in ecstasy: "Oh Nursie, you ARE beautiful!" At which she would smile and say in her gentle voice: "Am I, love?
Agatha Christie
One of the luckiest things that can happen to you in life is to have a happy childhood.
Agatha Christie
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.
Agatha Christie
... 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.
Agatha Christie
One can't do anything without a man. Men know so much, and are able to get information in so many ways that are simply impossible to women.
Agatha Christie
Young men are sadly degenerate nowadays.
Agatha Christie
When a man's neck's in danger, he doesn't stop to think too much about sentiment.
Agatha Christie
A man in love is a sorry spectacle.
Agatha Christie
Never worry about what you say to a man. They're so conceited that they never believe you mean it if it's unflattering.”-Caroline to Ursual.
Agatha Christie
A man in drink can be like a ravening wolf.
Agatha Christie
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.
Agatha Christie
Nobody knows what another person is thinking. They may imagine they do, but they are nearly always wrong.
Agatha Christie
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.
Agatha Christie
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.
Agatha Christie
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.
Agatha Christie
The longer the time that has elapsed, the more things fall into proportion. One sees them in their true relationship to one another.
Agatha Christie
Trains are relentless things, aren't they, Monsieur Poirot? People are murdered and die, but they go on just the same. I am talking nonsense, but you know what I mean.""Yes, yes, I know. Life is like a train, Mademoiselle. It goes on. And it is a good thing that that is so.""Why?""Because the train gets to its journey's end at last, and there is a proverb about that in your language, Mademoiselle.""'Journey's end in lovers meeting.'" Lenox laughed. "That is not going to be true for me.""Yes--yes, it is true. You are young, younger than you yourself know. Trust the train, Mademoiselle, for it is le bon Dieu who drives it."The whistle of the engine came again."Trust the train, Mademoiselle," murmured Poirot again. "And trust Hercule Poirot. He knows.
Agatha Christie
Where large sums of money are concerned, it is advisable to trust nobody.
Agatha Christie
… one can never go back, that one should not ever try to go back – that the essence of life is going forward. Life is really a One Way Street.
Agatha Christie
I mean that success has come early. And that is dangerous. Always dangerous.
Agatha Christie
What can I say at seventy-five? "Thank God for my good life,and for all the love that has been given to me.
Agatha Christie
Who can tell? It may be that there must always be growth - and that if one does not grow kinder and wiser and greater, then the growth must be the other way, fostering the evil things. Or it may be that the life they all led was too shut in, too folded back upon itself - without breadth or vision. Or it may be that, like a disease of crops, it is contagious, that first one and then another is sickened.
Agatha Christie
Speech is the deadliest of revealers.' - Hercule Poirot, Cards on the Table
Agatha Christie
The two words expressed volumes.
Agatha Christie
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....
Agatha Christie
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
Agatha Christie
After all, perhaps dirt isn't really so unhealthy as one is brought up to believe.
Agatha Christie
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.
Agatha Christie
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.
Agatha Christie
I am not one to rely upon the expert procedure. It is the psychology I seek, not the fingerprint or the cigarette ash.
Agatha Christie
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.
Agatha Christie
Your idea of a woman is someone who gets on a chair and shrieks if she sees a mouse. That's all prehistoric.
Agatha Christie
What a queer topsy turvy world it was. It used to be the man who went to the wars, the woman who stayed at home. But here the positions were reversed.
Agatha Christie
Sensationalism dies quickly, fear is long-lived.
Agatha Christie
You've a pretty good nerve," said Ratchett. "Will twenty thousand dollars tempt you?"It will not."If you're holding out for more, you won't get it. I know what a thing's worth to me."I, also M. Ratchett."What's wrong with my proposition?"Poirot rose. "If you will forgive me for being personal - I do not like your face, M. Ratchett," he said.
Agatha Christie
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.
Agatha Christie
They're like children, really. Only children are far more logical which makes it difficult sometimes with them. But these people are illogical, they want to be reassured by your telling them what they want to believe. Then they're quite happy again for a bit.
Agatha Christie
More children suffer from interference than from noninterference.
Agatha Christie
Child's evidence is always the best evidence there is. I'd rely on it every time. No good in court, of course. Children can't stand being asked direct questions. They mumble or else look idiotic and say they don't know. They're at their best when they're showing off.
Agatha Christie
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.
Agatha Christie
Such nice people, the Hillingdons, though she's not really very easy to know, is she? I mean, she's always very pleasant and all that, but one never seems to get to know her better.'Miss Marple agreed thoughtfully. 'One never knows what she is thinking.''Perhaps that is just as well.''I beg your pardon?''Oh nothing really, only that I've always had the feeling that perhaps her thoughts might be rather disconcerting.
Agatha Christie