Quotes from Agatha Christie

Sometimes I feel sure he is as mad as a hatter and then, just as he is at his maddest, I find there is a method in his madness.

Many homicidal lunatics are very quiet, unassuming people. Delightful fellows.

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.

Intuition is like reading a word without having to spell it out. A child can't do that because it has had so little experience. A grown-up person knows the word because they've seen it often before.

You should employ your little grey cells

It had come about ex­act­ly in the way things hap­pened in books.

The amount of missing girls I've had to trace and their family and their friends always say the same thing. 'She was a bright and affectionate disposition and had no men friends'. That's never true. It's unnatural. Girls ought to have men friends. If not, then there's something wrong about them....

Ah, but life is like that! It does not permit you to arrange and order it as you will. It will not permit you to escape emotion, to live by the intellect and by reason! You cannot say, 'I will feel so much and no more.' Life, Mr. Welman, whatever else it is, is not reasonable. [Hercule Poirot]

It's what's in yourself that makes you happy or unhappy.

One little Indian left all alone, he went out and hanged himself and then there were none.

There is no detective in England equal to a spinster lady of uncertain age with plenty of time on her hands.

What good is money if it can't buy happiness?

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

One of us in this very room is in fact the murderer.

A woman who doesn't lie is a woman without imagination and without sympathy.

I always think loyalty's such a tiresome virtue.

People should be interested in books, not their authors.

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.

Elephants can remember, but we are human beings and mercifully human beings can forget.

People with a grudge against the world are always dangerous. They seem to think life owes them something. I've known many an invalid who has suffered worse and been cut off from life much more . . . and they've managed to lead happy contented lives. It's what's in yourself that makes you happy or unhappy.

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

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

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.

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.