Agatha Christie Quotes

I like living. I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow; but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing.

It is a curious thought, but it is only when you see people looking ridiculous that you realize just how much you love them.

Very few of us are what we seem.

The impossible could not have happened, therefore the impossible must be possible in spite of appearances.

Poirot," I said. "I have been thinking." "An admirable exercise my friend. Continue it.

An archaeologist is the best husband a woman can have. The older she gets, the more interested he is in her.

Instinct is a marvelous thing. It can neither be explained nor ignored.

If you place your head in a lion's mouth, then you cannot complain one day if he happens to bite it off.

You gave too much rein to your imagination. Imagination is a good servant, and a bad master. The simplest explanation is always the most likely.

The best time for planning a book is while you're doing the dishes.

A mother's love for her child is like nothing else in the world. It knows no law, no pity. It dares all things and crushes down remorselessly all that stands in its path. -The Last Seance (from The Hound of Death and Other Stories, also Double Sin and Other Stories)

One doesn't recognize the really important moments in one's life until it's too late.

Never do anything yourself that others can do for you.

It is really a hard life. Men will not be nice to you if you are not good-looking, and women will not be nice to you if you are.

Never tell all you know—not even to the person you know best.

One of the saddest things in life, is the things one remembers.

The young people think the old people are fools -- but the old people know the young people are fools.

In the midst of life, we are in death.

The truth, however ugly in itself, is always curious and beautiful to seekers after it.

Time is the best killer.

Why shouldn't I hate her? She did the worst thing to me that anyone can do to anyone else. Let them believe that they're loved and wanted and then show them that it's all a sham.

Poetry is not the most important thing in life... I'd much rather lie in a hot bath reading Agatha Christie and sucking sweets.

But surely for everything you love you have to pay some price.

Good advice is always certain to be ignored, but that's no reason not to give it.

Everything must be taken into account. If the fact will not fit the theory---let the theory go.

But no artist, I now realize, can be satisfied with art alone. There is a natural craving for recognition which cannot be gain-said.

It is clear that the books owned the shop rather than the other way about. Everywhere they had run wild and taken possession of their habitat, breeding and multiplying, and clearly lacking any strong hand to keep them down.

I know there's a proverb which that says 'To err is human,' but a human error is nothing to what a computer can do if it tries.

I don't think necessity is the mother of invention. Invention . . . arises directly from idleness, possibly also from laziness. To save oneself trouble.

Words, madmoiselle, are only the outer clothing of ideas.

Every murderer is probably somebody's old friend.

To every problem, there is a most simple solution.

I do not argue with obstinate men. I act in spite of them.

A man when he is making up to anybody can be cordial and gallant and full of little attentions and altogether charming. But when a man is really in love he can't help looking like a sheep.

It is completely unimportant. That is why it is so interesting.

I don't know. I don't know at all. And that's what's frightening the life out of me. To have no idea....

If you confront anyone who has lied with the truth, he will usually admit it - often out of sheer surprise. It is only necessary to guess right to produce your effect.

It's like all those quiet people, when they do lose their tempers they lose them with a vengeance.

Everyone is a potential murderer-in everyone there arises from time to time the wish to kill-though not the will to kill.

I suppose it is because nearly all children go to school nowadays and have things arranged for them that they seem so forlornly unable to produce their own ideas.

It is the brain, the little gray cells on which one must rely. One must seek the truth within--not without." ~ Poirot

As a matter of fact it wouldn’t be safe to tell any man the truth about his wife! Funnily enough, I’d trust most women with the truth about their husbands. Women can accept the fact that a man is a rotter, a swindler, a drug taker, a confirmed liar, and a general swine, without batting an eyelash, and without its impairing their affection for the brute in the least. Women are wonderful realists.

An appreciative listener is always stimulating.

As life goes on it becomes tiring to keep up the character you invented for yourself, and so you relapse into individuality and become more like yourself everyday.

The secret of getting ahead is getting started.

One is left with the horrible feeling now that war settles nothing; that to win a war is as disastrous as to lose one.

If you are to be Hercule Poirot, you must think of everything.

I often wonder why the whole world is so prone to generalise. Generalisations are seldom if ever true and are usually utterly inaccurate.

Ten little Indian boys went out to dine; One choked his little self and then there were nine. Nine little Indian boys sat up very late; One overslept himself and then there were eight. Eight little Indian boys travelling in Devon; One said he'd stay there and then there were seven. Seven little Indian boys chopping up sticks; One chopped himself in halves and then there were six. Six little Indian boys playing with a hive; A bumblebee stung one and then there were five. Five little Indian boys going in for law; One got in Chancery and then there were four. Four little Indian boys going out to sea; A red herring swallowed one and then there were three. Three little Indian boys walking in the Zoo; A big bear hugged one and then there were two. Two little Indian boys sitting in the sun; One got frizzled up and then there was one. One little Indian boy left all alone; He went and hanged himself and then there were none.

There was a moment when I changed from an amateur to a professional. I assumed the burden of a profession, which is to write even when you don't want to, don't much like what you're writing, and aren't writing particularly well.