Quotes from Agatha Christie

Everyone's life has a tempo. Ruth's was presto whereas Miss Marple's was content to be adagio.

Miss Marple,' said Sir Henry, "you frighten me. I hope you will never wish to remove me. Your plans would be too good.

Because of his face." "His face? But—" "Yes, I know what you're going to say. It's a sinister face. That's just it. No man with a face like that could be really sinister. It must be a colossal joke on the part of Nature.

there is nothing more cruel than talk, and there is nothing more difficult to combat. When people say things behind your back there is nothing you can refute or deny, and the rumours go on growing and growing, and no one can stop them.

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

But Amyas was like all the Crales, a ruthless egoist. He loved Caroline but he never once considered her in any way. He did as he pleased.

But I," she thought, "am not a whole person. I belong not to myself, but to something outside of me.

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.

Mas não tão inteligente quanto Hercule Poirot!

Servants were the main topic of conversation in St. Mary Mead, so it was not difficult to lead the conversation in that direction.

Do you know what you sound like?' said Mrs. Oliver. 'A computer. You know. You're programming yourself. That's what they call it, isn't it? I mean you're feeding all these things into yourself all day and then you're going to see what comes out.

One needs some really good food and drink after all the magnificent blood and gloom of Macbeth. Shakespeare always makes me ravenous

We passed a very pleasant evening, though I made the slight mistake of taking Poirot to a crook play. There is one piece of advice I offer to all my readers. Never take a soldier to a military play, a sailor to a naval play, a Scotsman to a Scottish play, a detective to a thriller -- and an actor to any play whatsoever! The shower of destructive criticism in each case is somewhat devastating.

The caught murderer is necessarily one of the failures. He is second-rate.

He's like all the rest of these people; they make inflammatory speeches of enormous length, solely for political purposes, and then wish they hadn't.

We never know the whole man, though sometimes, in quick flashes, we know the true man.

Always looks as though she's seeing things other people don't see. But she's got a lot of character. She makes herself felt, as you might say.

Say, gentlemen, this business is getting on my nerves. Murder and the snow and all, and nothing doing. Just hanging about and killing time. I'd like to get busy after someone or something." "The true Western spirit of hustle," said Poirot with a smile.

You have the clear brain. Yes, one cannot go back over the past. One must accept things as they are. And sometimes, Madame, that is all one can do—accept the consequences of one's past deeds.

Family strength is a marvellous thing.

I'm always getting forgotten," said the grizzled doctor sadly. "I must have a very inconspicuous personality.

A rich man and his money are not so easily parted. Me, I have seen a well-known millionaire turn out a tramful of people to seek for a dropped halfpenny.

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.

These older people were the limit... They harped on things so.