Agatha Christie
Where do one's fears come from? Where do they shape themselves? Where do they hide before coming out into the open?Collection: Shapes
I don't go in for being sorry for people. For one thing it's insulting. One is only sorry for people when they're sorry for themselves. Self-pity is one of the biggest stumbling blocks in the world today.Collection: Sorry
Everybody is very much alike, really. But fortunately, perhaps, they don't realise it. - Miss MarpleCollection: Missing
You agree - I'm sure you agree that beauty is the only thing worth living for.Collection: Self Esteem
I would like it to be said that I was a good writer of detective and thriller stories.Collection: Stories
Poirot said placidly, “One does not, you know, employ merely the muscles. I do not need to bend and measure the footprints and pick up the cigarette ends and examine the bent blades of grass. It is enough for me to sit back in my chair and think. It is this – ” he tapped his egg-shaped head – “this, that functions!Collection: Thinking
I have always admired the Esquimaux (Eskimos). One fine day a delicious meal is cooked for dear old mother, and then she goes walking away over the ice, and doesn't come back.Collection: Mother
The things young women read nowadays and profess to enjoy positively frighten me.Collection: Young
I like to inquire into everything. Hercule Poirot is a good dog. The good dog follows the scent, and if, regrettably, there is no scent to follow, he noses around - seeking always something that is not very nice.Collection: Dog
I've got a stomach now as well as a behind. And I mean - well, you can't pull it in both ways, can you? ... I've made it a rule to pull in my stomach and let my behind look after itself.Collection: Mean
Mr. Jesmond made a peculiar noise rather like a hen who has decided to lay an egg and then thought better of it.Collection: Eggs
Very unfortunately, she had no husband. She had never had a husband, and therefore did not kill a husband.Collection: Husband
It's like all those quiet people, when they do lose their tempers they lose them with a vengeance.Collection: Quiet People
Oh, no, I'm not brave. When a thing is certain, there's nothing to be brave about. All you can do is to find your consolation.Collection: Courage
It is curious - but you cannot make a revolution without honest men. ... Every revolution has had its honest men. They are soon disposed of afterwards.Collection: Men
More children suffer from interference than from non-interference.Collection: Children
I have no pity for myself either. So let it be Veronal. But I wish Hercule Poirot had never retired from work and come here to grow vegetable marrows.Collection: Vegetables
I've a theory that one can always get anything one wants if one will pay the price. And do you know what the price is, nine times out of ten? Compromise.Collection: Pay The Price
there is evil everywhere under the sun.Collection: Evil
To keep something wild is far more difficult than to preserve it.Collection: Difficult
You cannot mix up sentiment and reason.Collection: Reason
How often have I not heard a perfectly intelligent female says, in the tone of one clinching an argument, 'Edgar says -- ' And all the time you are perfectly aware that Edgar is a perfect fool.Collection: Intelligent
too much safety is abhorrent to the nature of a human being.Collection: Safety
People who can be very good can be very bad too.Collection: People
It's so much nicer to be a secret and delightful sin to anybody than to be a feather in his cap.Collection: Secret
It is odd how, when you have a secret belief of your own which you do not wish to acknowledge, the voicing of it by someone else will rouse you to a fury of denial.Collection: Secret
Evil is not any superhuman, but it is HUMAN.Collection: Evil
Bottled, was he?" Said Colonel Bantry, with an Englishman's sympathy for alcoholic excess. "Oh, well, can't judge a fellow by what he does when he's drunk? When I was at Cambridge, I remember I put a certain utensil - well - well, nevermind.Collection: Sympathy
It is completely unimportant. That is why it is so interesting.Collection: Interesting
One little Indian boy left all alone; He went and hanged himself and then there were none.Collection: Littles
You regard it as impossible that a sinner should be struck down by the wrath of God! I do not!Collection: Wrath
That is what I mean. A bath! The receptacle of porcelain, one turns the taps and fills it, one gets in, one gets out and ghoosh - ghoosh - ghoosh, the water goes down the waste pipe!" "M. Poirot are you quite mad?" "No, I am extremely sane.Collection: Mean
He laughs best who laughs at the end.Collection: Laughing
It is my experience that no one, in the course of conversation, can fail to give themselves away sooner or later. Everyone has an irresistible urge to talk about themselves.Collection: Giving
A man doesn't wasnt to feel that a woman cares more for him than he cares for her. He doesn't want to feel owned, body and soul. It's that damned possessive attitude. This man is mine---he belongs to me! He wants to get away --- to get free. He wants to own his woman; he doesn't want her to own him.(Simon Boyle)Collection: Attitude
I was thinking, that when my time comes, I should be sorry if the only plea I had to offer was that of justice. Because it might mean that only justice would be meted out to me.Collection: Sorry
When you find that people are not telling you the truth---look out!Collection: Honesty
Fey...a Scotch word...It means the kind of exalted happiness that comes before disaster. You know--it's too good to be true.Collection: Mean
The amount of missing girls I've had to trace and their family and their friends always say the same thing. 'She was a bright and affectionate disposition and had no men friends'. That's never true. It's unnatural. Girls ought to have men friends. If not, then there's something wrong about them.Collection: Girl
If only-if only, Hastings, you would part your hair in the middle instead of at the side! What a difference it would make to the symmetry of your appearance. And your moustache. If you must have a moustache, let it be a real moustache-a thing of beauty such as mine.Collection: Real
Liking is more important than loving. It lasts. I want what is between us to last, Luke. I don't want us just to love each other and marry and get tired of each other and then want to marry some one else.Collection: Tired
Many friends have said to me, 'I never know when you write your books, because I've never seen you writing, or even seen you go away to write.' I must behave rather as dogs do when they retire with a bone; they depart in a secretive manner and you do not see them again for an odd half hour. They return self-consciously with mud on their noses. I do much the same.Collection: Dog
The whole thing was like a nine-month ocean voyage to which you never got acclimatized.Collection: Ocean
She was a lucky woman who had established a happy knack of writing what quite a lot of people wanted to read.Collection: Writing
Everything has got its right size. When it is its right size and well run it's the tops.Collection: Running
He was very much a man of moods, possibly owing to what is styled the artistic temperment. I have never seen, myself, why the possession of artistic ability should be supposed to excuse a man from a decent exercise of self-control.Collection: Exercise
Love is not everything ... It is only when we are young that we think it is.Collection: Love Is
I never can stand seeing people pleased with themselves,” said Joanna. “It arouses all my worst instincts.Collection: People
I am not one to rely upon the expert procedure. It is the psychology I seek, not the fingerprint or the cigarette ash.Collection: Rely Upon