Quotes About Observation

It was not until I was over twenty that I realised that my home standard had been unusually high and that actually I was quite as quick or quicker than the average. Inarticulate I shall always be. It is probably one of the causes that have made made me a writer.

There is, as Miss Marple would say, a lot of human nature in all of us.

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.

All three wore the air of superiority assumed by people who are already in a place when studying new arrivals.

Nothing, I believe, is so full of life under the microscope as a drop of water from a stagnant pool.

Well, of course, it was not any of my business but you get very queer glimpses of life sometimes, and you can't help speculating about them.

You're a man milliner, Poirot. I never notice what people have on." "You should join a nudist colony

I must say that ever since I have been unable to stop myself applying this criterion to any male stranger. Good-looking, perhaps–but are his legs common?

Women observe subconsciously a thousand little details ... and they call the result intuition.

What are the years from twenty to forty? Fettered and bound by personal and emotional relationships. That's bound to be. That's living. But later there's a new stage. You can think, observe life, discover something about other people and the truth about yourself. Life becomes real--significant. You see it as a whole. Not just one scene--the scene you, as an actor, are playing. No man or woman is actually himself (or herself) till after forty-five. That's when individuality has a chance.

As the visitor left the office, Tuppence grabbed the violin and putting it in the cupboard turned the key in the lock. "If you must be Sherlock Holmes," she observed, "I'll get you a nice little syringe and a bottle labelled Cocaine, but for God's sake leave that violin alone.

Faces are tricky unless you can connect up when and where you'd seen them.

She could not fail to observe that a life of academic distinction was singularly ill rewarded. She had no desire whatever to teach and she took pleasure in contacts with minds much less brilliant than her own. In short, she had a taste for people, all sorts of people—and not the same people the whole time.

You seem to know a hell of a lot about everything, you little foreign cock duck.

Well, perhaps you're right, Miss Blacklock, but my own diagnosis would be a severe attack of Nosey Parkeritis …

One must always proceed with method. I made an error of judgment asking you that question. Toeach man his own knowledge. You could tell me the details of the patient's physical appearance- nothing there would escape you. If I wanted information about the papers on the desk, Mr. Raymond would have noticed anything there was to see. To find out about the fire, I must ask the man whose business is to observe such things. - Detective Hercule Poirot to Doctor Sheppard

A little difficult to know where you were with Elinor. She didn't reveal much of what she thought and felt about things. He liked that about her. He hated people who reeled off their thoughts and feelings to you, who took it for granted that you wanted to know all their mechanism. Reserve was always more interesting.

We will sit here and drink coffee, and you shall all three listen to Hercule Poirot while he gives you a lecture on crime.

If you must be Sherlock Holmes," she observed, "I'll get you a nice little syringe and a bottle labelled cocaine, but for God's sake leave that violin alone.

Ah, yes,' said Poirot. He was reflecting, and not for the first time, that seen from the back, shorts were becoming to very few of the female sex. He shut his eyes in pain.

Well," said Adam, as Poirot went out. "First girls' knees, and now draughtsmanship! What next, I wonder!

Human nature, dear, is very much the same everywhere. It is more difficult to observe it closely in a city, that is all.

She's not sensual. She doesn't want affairs. It's just cold-blooded experiment on her part and the fun of stirring people up and setting them against each other. She dabbled in that too. She's the sort of woman who's never had a row with anyone in her life--but rows always happen where she is! She makes them happen. She's kind of female Iago. She must have drama. But she doesn't want to be involved herself. She's always outside pulling strings--looking on--enjoying it!

I think each one of us in his secret heart fancies himself as Sherlock Holmes.