Quotes About Deception

Yes, he is intelligent. But we must be more intelligent. We must be so intelligent that he does not suspect us of being intelligent at all." I acquiesced. "There, mon ami, you will be of great assistance to me." I was pleased with the compliment. There had been times when I hardly thought that Poirot appreciated me at my true worth. "Yes" he continued staring at me thoughtfully, "you will be invaluable

Because, you see, if the man were an invention—a fabrication—how much easier to make him disappear!

They say all the world loves a lover—apply that saying to murder and you have an even more infallible truth.

always bear in mind that the person who speaks may be lying

There is the natural liar...Always says the thing that sounds best.

Very unfortunately, she had no husband. She had never had a husband, and therefore did not kill a husband.

So you think that the coco- mark well what I say, Hastings, the coco- contained strychnine?" "Of course! That salt on the tray, what else could it have been?" "It might have been salt." replied Poirot placidly.

No," said Miss Marple. "You believed what he said. It really is very dangerous to believe people. I never have for years.

To know when to use the truth is the essence of successful deception

Because this is just what a nightmare is. Walking about among people you know, looking in their faces- and suddenly the faces change- and it's not someone you know any longer- it's a stranger- a cruel stranger.

How strange that a girl could trouble your inmost soul so long as she kept her mouth shut, and that the moment she spoke the glamour could vanish as though it had never been.

It's awfully easy to appear silly, Mr. Clement. It's one of the easiest things in the world.

I looked at her. Sheila was my girl--the girl I wanted--and wanted for keeps. But it wasn't any use having illusions about her. Sheila was a liar and probably always would be a liar. It was her way of fighting for survival--the quick easy glib denial. It was a child's weapon--and she'd probably never got out of using it. If I wanted Sheila, I must accept her as she was--be at hand to prop up the weak places. We've all got our weak places. Mine were different from Sheila's, but they were there.

I know that in books it is always the most unlikely person. But I never find that rule applies in real life. There it is so often the obvious that is true.

Some of the greatest criminals I have known had the faces of angels.

It is perfectly clear. Mr. Owen is one of us.…

It is a great advantage to be intelligent and not to look it.

It's as easy to utter lies as truth

because I've always noticed that if you speak the truth in a rather silly way nobody believes you. I've often done it over contracts. And it's also a good thing to seem stupider than you are.

Romance can be a by-product of crime.

Women are fiends-absolute fiends.

He, of course, is a liar, but that doesn't really matter because, if you know liars are liars, it comes to the same thing.

What does one say to a woman who has just killed her husband?

W: Nobody's so gullible as scientists. All the phony mediums say so. Can't quite see why. J: Oh, yes, it would be so. They think they know, you see. That's always dangerous. ~Wharton; Jessop