Quotes by Agatha Christie

Juliet singles out Romeo. Desdemona claims Othello. They have no doubts, the young, no fear, no pride.

Who was there to guard youth from pain and death - youth who could not, who had never been able to, guard itself? Did they know too little? Or was it that they knew too much, and therefore thought they knew it all?

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.

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

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.

Thought is yours only. Nobody can alter or influence the use you mean to make of it.

You are the patient one, Mademoiselle, said Poirot to Miss Debenham.She shrugged her shoulders slightly. What else can one do?You are a philosopher, Mademoiselle.That implies a detached attitude. I think my attitude is more selfish. I have learned to save myself useless emotion.

Miss Howard: Like a good detective story myself. Lots of nonsense written, though. Criminal discovered in last Chapter. Everyone dumbfounded. Real crime - youd know at once.

The Roar of the engine penetrated through Bertrams Hotel from the street outside. Colonel Luscombe perceived that Ladislaus Malinowski was one of Elviras 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.

She breathed an enormous sigh, looked at Poirot, Looked away, and suddenly blurted out, Youre too old. Nobody told me you were so old. I really dont want to be rude but - there it is. Youre too old. Im really sorry. She turned abruptly and blundered out of the room, rather like a desperate moth in lamplight. Poirot, his mouth open, heard the bang of the front door. He ejaculated: Non dun nom dun nom...

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

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

Her sleep was enlivened by several dreams. One where Professor Wansteads bushy eyebrows fell off because they were not his own eyebrows, but false ones. As she woke again, her first impression was that which often follows dreams, a belief that the dream in question had solved everything. Of course, she thought, of course! His eyebrows were false and that solved the whole thing. He was the criminal.

If Hori were to die, I should not forget! Hori is a song in my heart for ever... That means-that there is no more death...

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.

Its all very well to talk like that,” said Mr. Rafiel. “We, you say? What do you think I can do about it? I cant even walk without help. How can you and I set about preventing a murder? Youre about a hundred and Im a broken-up old crock.

It is romantic, yes,’ agreed Hercule Poirot. ‘It is peaceful. The sun shines. The sea is blue. But you forget, Miss Brewster, there is evil everywhere under the sun’.

A susceptible child is capable of great hero worship, and a young mind can easily be obsessed by an idea which persists into adult life.

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

When he passed me in the restaurant, he said at last, I had a curious impression. It was as though a wild animal – an animal savage, but savage! you understand – had passed me by.And yet he looked altogether of the most respectable.Précisément! The body – the cage – is everything of the most respectable – but through the bars, the wild animal looks out.You are fanciful, mon vieux, said M. Bouc. It may be so. But I could not rid myself of the impression that evil had passed me by very close. (1.2.52-56)