Quotes from Agatha Christie

the maxim, 'If you want a thing done safely, do not do it yourself!

Jason Rafiel: It's up to her now. Thousand of years ago she had a measuring rod, a sword, and a whip. Yes, it was called a scourge. She rode about in a chariot drawn by griffins. Nemesis. Last time I saw her, she was wearing a pink, woolly shawl.

That was ever so kind of you, Mrs. Bantry. I must say I wouldn't have dared myself." "One has to dare if one wants to get anywhere," said Mrs. Bantry.

Dancing was a hot affair. I danced twice with Anne Beddingfeld and she had to pretend she liked it. I danced once with Mrs Blair, who didn't trouble to pretend, and I victimized various other damsels who appearance struck me favourably.

It is to show you that it is the eyes of the mind with which one really sees….

I believe the "present" matters - not the past! The past must go. If we seek to keep the past alive, we end, I think, by distorting it. We see it in exaggerated terms - a false perspective.

I fancied - of course it may have been only my fancy - that he looked slightly ill at ease. The company in which he found himself was, so I could imagine, little to his liking. He was a strictly conservative and somewhat reactionary young man - the kind of character to have stepped out of the Middle Ages by some regrettable mistake. His infatuation for the extremely modern Jane Wilkinson was one of those anachronistic jokes that Nature so loves to play.

My husband's a very good man," she said. "Besides being the vicar, I mean. And that makes things difficult sometimes. Good people, you see, don't really understand evil." She paused and then said with a kind of brisk efficiency, "I think it had better be me.

Smell goes up, not down. You'd notice a decaying body in the cellar much sooner than in the attic. And, anyway, for a long time people would think it was a dead rat.

Hasta el propio Romeo, como sabes, tuvo su Rosalinda antes de que le sorbiera el seso Julieta.

It has been a wet day. The wind blew, the rain came down, and the mist was everywhere so that one could not see through it. Eh bien, what is it like now? The mists have rolled away, the sky is clear and up above the stars shine. That is like life, Madame.

It's maddening really," said Patricia. "Probably the only chance in my life that I shall ever have of being right on the spot when a murder was done—it is a murder, isn't it? The papers were very cautious and vague, but I said to Gerry on the telephone that it must be murder. Think of it, a murder done right close by me and I wasn't even looking!" The regret in her voice was unmistakable.

it is a lady's handkerchief,

Of course she did not like the police," said Marcus. "Nobody likes the police. I do not like the police. But I have to stand well with them because of my hotel.

A person who had killed three times wouldn't hesitate to kill again…. They were in danger,

Her mind went back to the scene she had witnessed. Horrible, quite horrible… She was a strong-nerved woman, but she shivered. What a strange—what a fantastic thing to happen to her, Elspeth McGillicuddy! If the blind of the carriage had not happened to fly up… But that, of course, was Providence. Providence had willed that she, Elspeth McGillicuddy, should be a witness of the crime. Her lips set grimly.

Nothing. An idea that has just occurred to me. I must go home and think things out thoroughly. Do you know, I believe I have been extremely stupid—almost incredibly so." "I find that hard to believe," I said gallantly

When I went home as a child with my mother, to South Carolina, my grandfather taught me to shoot. He was the old-fashioned kind that believes in shooting—especially where honour is concerned. My father, too, he fought several duels as a young man. He was a good swordsman. He killed a man once. That was over a woman. So you see, Monsieur Poirot"—she met his eyes squarely—"I've hot blood in

That old mountebank? He won't find out anything. He's all talk and moustaches.

It seems sometimes, sir, as though the past isn't the past

It was all a long time ago…

Seeing Jane's beauty and appreciating the charm that her exquisitely husky voice lent to the most trite utterances, I could hardly wonder at his capitulation. But one can get used to perfect beauty and an intoxicating voice! It crossed my mind that perhaps even now a ray of common sense was dissipating the mists of intoxicated love

Yet he had a certain charm of manner, and I fancied that, if one really knew him well, one could have a deep affection for him.

But where was youth? Studying, she supposed, at universities, or doing a job—with a fortnight's holiday a year. A place like this was too far away and too expensive. This gay and carefree life was all for the thirties and the forties—and the old men who were trying to live up (or down) to their young wives. It seemed, somehow, a pity.