Quotes from Agatha Christie

I think Mrs. Leidner seems happier already from just talking about it. That's always a help, you know. It's bottling things up that makes them get on your nerves.

My Great-aunt Jane always used to say that a true lady was neither shocked nor surprised at anything that might happen," I murmured dreamily. "I endeavour to live up to her precepts.

An unfairness of the good God,

The innocent must not suffer.

The moral character of the victim has nothing to do with it! A human being who has exercised the right of private judgment and taken the life of another human being is not safe to exist amongst the community.

Inspector Hardcastle walked in manfully. Unfortunately for him he was one of those men who have cat allergy. As usually happens on these occasions all the cats immediately made for him. One jumped on his knee, another rubbed affectionately against his trousers. Detective Inspector Hardcastle, who was a brave man, set his lips and endured.

It has been my experience, that women possess little or no pride where love affairs are concerned. Pride is a quality often on their lips, but not apparent in their actions.

We do all these things when we are young. The poise, the savoir faire , it comes later.

Yes," said Miss Marple. "The children of Lucifer are often beautiful—And as we know, they flourish like the green bay tree.

Ah, but you must have a Christmas uncomplicated by murder.

Her words held all the pointed innuendo that elderly ladies are able to achieve with the minimum of actual statement.

But one thing is certain, he is the master criminal of this age. He controls a marvellous organization. Most of the Peace propaganda during the war was originated and financed by him.

mrs. McGinty's dead..how did she die? down on one knee..just like I mrs. McGinty's dead..how did she die? holding her hand out..just like I mrs. McGinty's dead.. how did she die? sticking her neck out..just like I

There is nothing so dangerous for any one who has something to hide as conversation!

It was due to his tact, to his judgment, to his sympathetic manipulation of human beings that the atmosphere had always been such a happy one... If there was a change, therefore, the change must be due to the man at the top.

Death is for other people.

Clotilde, Miss Marple thought, was certainly no Ophelia, but she would have made a magnificent Clytemnestra---she could have stabbed a husband in his bath with exultation. But since she had never had a husband, that solution wouldn't do. Miss Marple could not see her murdering anyone else but a husband---and there had been no Agamemnon in this house.

The real excitement of being a girl - of being, that is, a woman in embryo - was that life was such a wonderful gamble. You didn't know what was going to happen to you. That was what made being a woman so exciting. No worry about what you should be or do - Biology would decide. You were waiting for The Man, and when the man came, he would change your entire life, you can say what you like, that is an exciting point of view to hold at the threshold of life.

Fellow has the wrong clothes and all that. French chap-or Belgian. Queer fellow, but he's got the goods all right.

Whether he acted rightly or not, I have never been sure. It was the future of a child that was at stake. A child, he felt, ought to be given the benefit of a doubt.

The Lord is mindful of his own." "Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day….

There is much evil in the world.

But facts are facts, and if one is proved to be wrong, one must just be humble about it and start again.

What was this passion that attacked women for knitting under the most unpropitious conditions? A woman did not look her best knitting; the absorption, the glassy eyes, the restless, busy fingers! One needed the agility of a wild cat, and the will-power of a Napoleon to manage to knit in a crowded tube, but women managed it! If they succeeded in obtaining a seat, out came a miserable little strip of shrimp pink and click, click went the pins!