Quotes from Agatha Christie

I don't like that woman. I don't like the hat she is wearing, and I don't like her mushroom-coloured stockings.

Why, he's Hercule Poirot! You know who I mean—the private detective. They say he's done the most wonderful things—just like detectives do in books.

I think I said that every generation had its weaklings--that that was one of the penalties of greatness--but that their failings were seldom remembered by posterity.

Shaitana was a man who prided himself on his Mephistophelian attitude to life. He was a man of great vanity. He was also a stupid man-that's why he is dead.

And supposing the Coroner's jury returns a verdict of Wilful Murder against Alfred Inglethorp. What becomes of your theories, then?" "They would not be shaken because twelve stupid men had happened to make a mistake!

Although everyone knows death comes in the end, you have this stupid mind which keeps on saying, 'But I won't die today . . .' right up to the moment of death!

My dear Mr. Schwartz, you appeared in the nick of time. It might have been a drama on the stage! I am very much in your debt.

Many children, most children, I should say, suffer from over-attention on the part of their parents. There is too much love, too much watching over the child.

En voiture, Monsieur,' said the Wagon Lit conductor.

Real evidence is usually vague and unsatisfactory. It has to be examined—sifted.

I suppose that one can, if one has the determination, always get something out of life.

Dyspepsia is responsible for many a reputation for romantic melancholy or ungovernable rages.

Nowadays young people seem to think they can just go about doing anything they choose.

People are so proud of their wickedness. Odd, isn't it, that people who are good are never proud of it?

We had a lazy voyage, stopping at Fiji and other islands, and finally arrived at Honolulu. It was far more sophisticated than we had imagined with masses of hotels and roads and motor-cars. We arrived in the early morning, got into our rooms at the hotel, and straight away, seeing out of the window the people surfing on the beach, we rushed down, hired our surf-boards, and plunged into the sea.

In some ways I really think that men are beasts.

Death was temporary, lasting only long enough to provoke a laugh from kids in pajamas sitting cross-legged in front of the TV set, gorging themselves on handfuls of Froot Loops.

I walked into Cartwright's and ordered two coffee ice cream sodas—to steady my nerves. A man, I suppose, would have had a stiff peg; but girls derive a lot of comfort from ice cream sodas. I applied myself to the end of the straw with gusto. The cool liquid went trickling down my throat in the most agreeable manner. I pushed the first glass aside empty.

IF anybody had been there to observe the gentle-looking elderly lady who stood meditatively on the loggia outside her bungalow, they would have thought she had nothing more on her mind than deliberation on how to arrange her time that day. An expedition, perhaps, to Castle Cliff; a visit to Jamestown; a nice drive and lunch at Pelican Point_ or just a quiet morning on the beach. But the gentle old lady was deliberating quite other matters. She was in a militant mood.

Speech, so a wise old Frenchman said to me once, is an invention of man's to prevent him from thinking.

but the unlikely happened more often than one would be disposed to believe.

If you've been snubbed, or ignored, or frustrated, and your life's pretty drab and empty, I suppose you get a sense of power from stabbing in the dark at people who are happy and enjoying themselves.

Mary Jordan did not die naturally. It was one of us, I think I know which one.

We established ourselves on the grassy knoll as Poirot had suggested,