Quotes from Agatha Christie

Oh, yes. I've no doubt in my own mind that we have been invited here by a madman—probably a dangerous homicidal lunatic.

Now you must realize this, Hastings. Everyone is a potential murderer. In everyone there arises from time to time the wish to kill—though not the will to kill. How often have you not felt or heard others say: 'She made me so furious

Sorrow for a person is different—one can't put that behind one. But one can get over shock and horror by just not letting your mind dwell on it all the time.

Are you still there monsieur Poirot?" Demanded Mrs. Oliver. At the same time, the operator requested more money. With these formalities completed, Poirot spoke once more. "Are you still there Madame?" "I'M still here." Said Mrs. Oliver. "And don't let's waste any more money asking each other if we're there. What is it?

I was glad I had been brilliant, but I did not want to think of anything complex. I wanted to go to sleep.

Her account is that she tried to get out of having to read it, but it was no use." "And that's fair enough," sighed Craddock. "If anyone is really determined to lend you a book, you never can get out of it!

A madman in particular has always a very strong reason for the crimes he commits.

From what you read and hear nowadays, it seems that murder under certain aspects is slowly but surely being made acceptable to a large section of the community." She

They went up the stairs. The next move was a little like a scene in a farce. Each one of the four stood with a hand on his or her bedroom door handle. Then, as though at a signal, each one stepped into the room and pulled the door shut. There were sounds of bolts and locks, of the moving of furniture. Four frightened people were barricaded in until morning.

I have learned to save myself useless emotion

words, ingeniously used, will serve to mask the ugliness of naked facts.

Poirot looked up at the sky. 'When the sun shines you cannot see the moon,' he said. 'But when the sun is gone–ah, when the sun is gone.' Cornelia's mouth fell open. 'I beg your pardon?' 'I was saying, Mademoiselle, that when the sun has gone down, we shall see the moon. That is so, is it not?

they are only full of pity for the young killer, because of his youth. Why should they not execute him? We have taken the lives of wolves, in this country; we didn't try to teach the wolf to lie down with the lamb–I doubt really if we could have. We hunted down the wild boar in the mountains before he came down and killed the children by the brook. Those were our enemies–and we destroyed them. What

It is looking for the needle in the haystack, I grant—but in the haystack there is a needle—of that I am convinced!

Madame, the most kind, the most amiable are not always the cleverest.

Qué es importante y que no lo es? Nunca se puede decir. Hemos de fijarnos en los menores detalles.

I mean that we here are on the wrong side of the tapestry," answered Father Brown. "The things that happen here do not seem to mean anything; they mean something somewhere else. Somewhere else retribution will come on the real offender. Here it often seems to fall on the wrong person.

A beautiful stone is only a beautiful stone. It doesn't lead you anywhere. It doesn't mean anything, it has no form or significance until is has its setting. And the setting has to have a beautiful jewel to be worthy of it.

Com maior percepção do caráter inglês, servi uma forte dose de uísque com soda e coloquei-a na frente do desditado inspetor.

My dear lady, in my experience of ill-doing, Providence leaves the work of conviction and chastisement to us mortals—and the process is often fraught with difficulties. There are no short cuts.

He never left the cinema very quickly. It always took him a moment or two to return to the prosaic reality of everyday life.

This hunting of the fox, you need the dogs, no?' 'Hounds,' I corrected gently. 'Yes, of course.' 'But yet,' Poirot wagged his finger at me. 'You did not descend from your horse and run along the ground smelling with your nose and uttering loud Ow Ows?

There are questions that you don't ask because you're afraid of the answers to them.

He was a man of whom nearly everybody was a little afraid. Why this last was so can hardly be stated in definite words. There was a feeling, perhaps, that he knew a little too much about everybody. And there was a feeling, too, that his sense of humor was a curious one.