Quotes from Agatha Christie

Now, I dare say you modern young people will laugh, but when I am in really bad trouble I always say a little prayer to myself—anywhere, when I am walking along the street, or at a bazaar. And I always get an answer. It may be some trifling thing, apparently quite unconnected with the subject, but there it is. I had that text pinned over my bed when I was a little girl: Ask and you shall receive.

But nothing will suit him now but the best! He's got on wonderfully, and naturally he wants something to show for it, but many's the time I wonder where it will end.

One mustn't refuse the unusual, if it is offered to one.

The other two waited respectfully while M. Bouc struggled in mental agony.

Sloppy crying had never helped anyone yet.

And has it ever occurred to you, Miss Griffith, that you would probably not be able to take a good express train to London if little Georgie Stephenson had been out with his youth movement instead of lolling about, bored, in his mother's kitchen until the curious behaviour of the kettle lid attracted the attention of his idle mind?

The mind is confused? Is it not so? Take time, mon ami. You are agitated; you are excited—it is but natural. Presently, when we are calmer, we will arrange the facts, neatly, each in his proper place. We will examine—and reject. Those of importance we will put on one side; those of no importance, pouf!"—he screwed up his cherub-like face, and puffed comically enough—"blow them away!" "That's

Nice looking young lady, but the ordinary kind, not glamourous, no Hollywood touch about her.

Sheila's about the only young girl in this place and she naturally assumes that she ought to have it all her own way with the young things in trousers. Naturally it annoys her when a woman, who in her view is middle-aged and who has already two husbands to her credit, comes along and licks her on her own ground. [...] No, I think it's age daring to defeat youth that annoys her so much!

His poems have no capital letters in them, which is, I believe, the essence of modernity. His books are about unpleasant people leading lives of surpassing dullness.

I often find these self-made men are inconsiderate. Very possibly that is why they amass such large fortunes.

deadly logic is one of the special characteristics of acute mania.

When people ask "Do you put real people in your books?" the answer is that, for me, it is quite impossible to write about anyone I know, or have ever spoken to, or indeed have even heard about! For some reason, it kills them for me stone dead.

Of course,' said Miss Marple, 'a lot of people are stupid. And stupid people get found out, whatever they do. But there are quite a number of people who aren't stupid, and one shudders to think of what they might accomplish unless they had very strongly rooted principles.

The family would come under suspicion," he said, "and it might remain under suspicion for a long time—perhaps for ever. If one of the family was guilty it is possible that they themselves would not know which one. They would look at each other and—wonder … Yes, that's what would be the worst of all. They themselves would not know which…

Everybody always knows something," said Adam. "Even if it's something they don't know they know.

After all, the stupidest child can set a house on fire quite easily.

The vicar, a gentle, middle-aged man, was always the last to hear anything.

Snapshots were handed round. The menace of coloured transparencies was in the offing. All the enthusiasts wanted to show their own pictures, but to get out of being forced to see other people's.

One doesn't want to die young. Sometimes one has to.

Bundle frowned. This business of the clocks was curious. She must get hold of Bill Eversleigh. He had been there, she knew. To think was to act with Bundle. She got up and went over to the writing desk. It was an inlaid affair with a lid that rolled back. Bundle sat down at it, pulled a sheet of notepaper towards her and wrote. Dear Bill,—

Miss Marple made the kind of noise that would once have been written down as 'tut-tut'.

My good Japp, is it possible that you throw the mud in my eyes? I know well enough that it is the Chinaman you suspect. But you are so artful. You want me to help you—and yet you drag the red kipper across the trail.

Does a man who commits suicide stab himself in ten—twelve—fifteen places?" he asked. Poirot's eyes opened. "That is great ferocity," he said. "It is a woman," said the chef de train, speaking for the first time. "Depend upon it, it was a woman. Only a woman would stab like that.