Quotes by Agatha Christie

The eye is diverted from the real business, it is caught by the spectacular action that means nothing--nothing at all.

Its a rotten job, but somebodys got to do it.

The law. Lady Frances, is an uncertain animal. It has twists and turns that surprise the non-legal mind.

Wwhat the hell? Weve all got to die sometime!

Living alone, with no one to consult or talk to, one might easily become melodramatic, and imagine things which had no foundation on fact.

Plots come to me at such odd moments, when I am walking along the street, or examining a hat shop…suddenly a splendid idea comes into my head.

What I feel is that if one has got to have a murder actually happening in ones house, one might as well enjoy it, if you know what I mean.

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

[Murder] doesnt concern the victim and the guilty only. It affects the innocent too. You and I are innocent, but the shadow of murder has touched us. We dont know how that shadow is going to affect our lives.

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.

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. Rafters smile broadened.Conversations with you might be dangerous, he said.Conversations are always dangerous, if you have something to hide, said Miss Marple.

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.

Don’t go,” said Cedric. “Murder has made you practically one of the family.

Where there is murder, anything can happen.

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 curiouslyeveryone concerned in them has something to hide

In fact, said Poirot, she stabbed him in the dark, not realising that he was dead already, but somehow deduced that he had a watch in his pyjama pocket, took it out, put back the hands blindly and gave it the requisite dent.

Edna restored the toffee to the centre of her tongue and sucking pleasurably, resumed her typing of Naked Love by Armand Levine. Its painstaking eroticism left her uninterested--as indeed it did most of Mr. Levines readers, in spite of his efforts. He was a notable example of the fact that nothing can be duller than dull pornography.

People bicker so and have such rows. Even if theyre fond of each other, they still seem to have rows and not to mind a bit whether they have them in public or not.

You are lucky, Renisenb. You have found the happiness that is inside everybodys own heart. To most women, happiness means coming and going, busied over small affairs. It is care for ones 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.

I believe at least in one of the chief tenets of the Christian faith--contentment with a lowly place. I am a doctor and I know that ambition--the desire to succeed--to have power--leads to most ills of the human soul. If the desire is realized it leads to arrogance, violence and final satiety; and if it is denied--ah! if it is denied--let all the asylums for the insane rise up and give their testimony! The are filled with human beings who were unable to face being mediocre, insignificant, ineffective and who therefore created for themselves ways of escape from reality so to be shut off from life itself forever.