Quotes from Agatha Christie

What beats me—it always does—is how a man can be so clever and yet be such a perfect fool.

Her nephew had once compared life in St. Mary Mead to scum on a pond, and she had indignantly pointed out that smeared on a slide under the microscope there would be plenty of life to be observed. Yes, indeed, in St. Mary Mead, there was always something going on.

Do you know, M. Poirot, I rather hope that this case isn't going to be one of your successes. I'd quite like the murderer of Louise Leidner to get away with it. In fact, I wouldn't much have objected to putting her out of the way myself.

Until the last minute I keep everything here," he tapped his forehead.

What I feel is that if one has got to have a murder actually happening in one's house, one might as well enjoy it, if you know what I mean.

No Woolworth handkerchiefs," reported Race, rapidly replacing the contents of a drawer.

One little soldier boy left all alone; He went and hanged himself And then there were None. Frank Green, 1869

He saw the alarm grow in the dark eyes. Mr. Dubois did not like the appearance of an inspector of the CID. He didn't like it at all.

Fear, Mr. Burton, is an incalculable thing.

The man obviously wanted to tell him something - and as obviously had lost the art of simple narration. Words had become to him a means of obscuring facts - not of revealing them. He was an adept in the art of the useful phrase - that is to say the phrase that falls soothingly on the ear and is quite empty of meaning.

If it's epilepsy we ought to put a cork in his mouth. Who's got a cork?" Nobody had a cork.

Quite unconsciously he backed away a little towards the door. Inspector Neele noted the movement.

They won't know. Who's to tell them? Nobody knows but you." It was the second time she had said those words. At this second repetition her voice changed a little

In the heart of the desert or in the heart of a crowd—what does it matter? The inmost core of man is solitary—alone. I have always been —a lonely soul....

And the victim, mademoiselle, is very often the clue to the mystery." Miss Reilly said: "That's rather clever of you, M. Poirot. It's certainly true that if ever a woman deserved to be murdered Mrs. Leidner was that woman!

So she's a liar too!" I said. "The cool way she answered you this morning about these same letters!

Some people might have scrupulously removed themselves from earshot of a private conversation. But not Hercule Poirot. He had no scruples of that kind.

Her works are not about the blood, but the marrow. They can be charming and harrowing at the same time.

Laycock then displayed his particular genius which was that of enthusiastic agreement and subsequent lack of performance.

A childish rhyme of my infancy came back into my mind - the rhyme of the ten little soldier boys. It had fascinated me as a child of two - the inexorable diminishment - the sense of inevitability. I began, secretly, to collect victims....

Left ignominiously on the mat, Poirot studied the doorknocker with intense disgust at its unpolished condition.

I couldn't help laughing to myself at little M. Poirot in the role of a panther.

His hands were shaking and his face was twitching. He looked a wreck of a man.

Such a one is encased, is he not, in an armour—such an armour! The armour of the crusaders was nothing to it—an armour of arrogance, of pride, of complete self-esteem. This armour, it is in some ways a protection, the arrows, the everyday arrows of life glance off it. But there is this danger; Sometimes a man in armour might not even know he was being attacked. He will be slow to see, slow to hear—slower still to feel.