Agatha Christie Quotes - Page 5

Why harrow oneself by looking on the worst side?... Because it is sometimes necessary.
Agatha Christie
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.
Agatha Christie
... 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...
Agatha Christie
Everything is possible, isn't it? The world soon teaches one that!
Agatha Christie
If you care for money too much, it is only the money you see, everything else is in shadow.
Agatha Christie
Money, money, money! I think about money morning, noon and night! I dare say it's mercenary of me, but there it is
Agatha Christie
My flute, M. Poirot, is my oldest companion. When everything else fails, music remains.
Agatha Christie
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.
Agatha Christie
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.
Agatha Christie
An archaeologist is the best husband a woman can have. The older she gets, the more interested he is in her.
Agatha Christie
But it is not always the people who say most who do most.
Agatha Christie
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.
Agatha Christie
Take the Pyramids. Great blocks of useless masonry, put up to minister to the egoism of a despotic bloated king. Think of the sweated masses who toiled to build them and died doing it. It makes me sick to think of the suffering and torture they represent."Mrs. Allerton said cheerfully: "You’d rather have no Pyramids, no Parthenon, no beautiful tombs or temples—just the solid satisfaction of knowing that people got three meals a day and died in their beds."The young man directed his scowl in her direction. "I think human beings matter more than stones.
Agatha Christie
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.
Agatha Christie
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.
Agatha Christie
In my opinion, the state of mind of a community is always directly due to the influence of the man at the top.
Agatha Christie
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.
Agatha Christie
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.
Agatha Christie
I am pointing to you that under these conditions--mental strain, physical malaise--it is highly probable that dislikes that were before merely mild and disagreements that were trivial might suddenly assume a more serious note. The result of pretending to be a more amiable, a more forgiving, a more high-minded person than one really is, has sooner or later the effect of causing one to behave as a more disagreeable, a more ruthless and an altogether more unpleasant person than is actually the case! If you dam the stream of natural behavior, mon ami, sooner or later the dam bursts and cataclysm occurs.
Agatha Christie
Women were very queer. Unexpectedly cruel and unexpectedly kind.
Agatha Christie
There are questions that you don't ask because you're afraid of the answers to them.
Agatha Christie
I will only ask you to believe one thing. I have faith in myself. I believe that I am the man to guide England through the days of crisis that I see coming. If I did not honestly believe that I am needed by my country to steer the ship of state, I would not have done what I have done--made the best of both worlds--saved myself from disaster by a clever trick.''My lord, if you could not make the best of both worlds, you could not be a politician.
Agatha Christie
How well you express it! That is exactly the curse of a politician's life. He has to bow to the country's feeling, however dangerous and foolhardy he knows it to be.
Agatha Christie
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.
Agatha Christie
Bottled, was he?" Said Colonel Bantry, with an Englishman's sympathy for alcoholic excess. "Oh, well, can't judge a fellow by what he does when he's drunk? When I was at Cambridge, I remember I put a certain utensil - well - well, nevermind.
Agatha Christie
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.
Agatha Christie
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.
Agatha Christie
I often wonder why the whole world is so prone to generalise. Generalisations are seldom if ever true and are usually utterly inaccurate.
Agatha Christie
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
Agatha Christie
You would hate people if you were like me… If you weren’t wanted.
Agatha Christie
There! Now we're friends!" declared the minx. "Say you're sorry about my sister -""I am desolated!""That's a good boy!
Agatha Christie
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.
Agatha Christie
One little Indian left all alone, he went out and hanged himself and then there were none.
Agatha Christie
It is clear that the books owned the shop rather than the other way about. Everywhere they had run wild and taken possession of their habitat, breeding and multiplying, and clearly lacking any strong hand to keep them down.
Agatha Christie
You don't appreciate a faithful husband when you've got one,' said Tommy.'All my friends tell me you never know with husbands,' said Tuppance.'You have the wrong kind of friends,' said Tommy.
Agatha Christie
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.
Agatha Christie
Use that fluff of yours you call a brain.
Agatha Christie
You don't appreciate a faithful husband when you've got one,' said Tommy.'All my friends tell me you never know with husbands,' said Tuppance.'You have the wrong kind of friends,' said Tommy.
Agatha Christie
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.
Agatha Christie
Use that fluff of yours you call a brain.
Agatha Christie
No one human being knows the full truth about another human being. Not even one's nearest and dearest.
Agatha Christie
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.
Agatha Christie
I suppose it is because nearly all children go to school nowadays and have things arranged for them that they seem so forlornly unable to produce their own ideas.
Agatha Christie
In fact there is only your own instinct?Not instinct, Hastings. Instinct is a bad word. It is my knowledge-my experience-that tells me that something about that letter is wrong-
Agatha Christie
One knows so little. When one knows more it is too late.
Agatha Christie
Un archeologo è il miglior marito che una donna possa avere: più lei diventa vecchia, più lui s'interessa a lei.
Agatha Christie
There was a moment when I changed from an amateur to a professional. I assumed the burden of a profession, which is to write even when you don't want to, don't much like what you're writing, and aren't writing particularly well.
Agatha Christie
The best time for planning a book is while you're doing the dishes.
Agatha Christie
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.
Agatha Christie
Death was for-the other people.
Agatha Christie
Death, mademoiselle, unfortunately creates a prejudice. A prejudice in favour of the deceased. I heard what you said just now to my friend Hastings. ‘A nice bright girl with no men friends.’ You said that in mockery of the newspapers. And it is very true—when a young girl is dead, that is the kind of thing that is said. She was bright. She was happy. She was sweet-tempered. She had not a care in the world. She had no undesirable acquaintances. There is a great charity always to the dead. Do you know what I should like this minute? I should like to find someone who knew Elizabeth Barnard and who does not know she is dead! Then, perhaps, I should hear what is useful to me—the truth.
Agatha Christie
In the midst of life, we are in death.
Agatha Christie
When you're in the middle of a nightmare, something ordinary is the only hope. Anyway, ordinary things are the best. I've always thought so.
Agatha Christie
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.
Agatha Christie
One always has hope for human nature
Agatha Christie
What good is money if it can't buy happiness?
Agatha Christie
The truth must be quite plain, if one could just clear away the litter.
Agatha Christie
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
Agatha Christie
Where do one's fears come from? Where do they shape themselves? Where do they hide before coming out into the open?
Agatha Christie
If you place your head in a lion's mouth, then you cannot complain one day if he happens to bite it off.
Agatha Christie