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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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....

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

Fiction should be a place of lollipops and escape. Real life is depressing enough--I, for one, don't want to read about make believe misery, too.

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

A Christian has no business being satisfied with mediocrity. He's supposed to reach for the stars. Why not? He's not on his own anymore. He has God's help now.

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

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.

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.

No, I really did. I walked into that room and saw the hottest, sexiest guy I've ever seen - wet and half naked. And I said, "Ewww." I know. How am I still single, right?

An appreciative listener is always stimulating.

The secret of getting ahead is getting started.

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.

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.

Everybody always knows something," said Adam, "even if it's something they don't know they know.

If you feel far from God, guess who moved?

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

Curious things, habits. People themselves never knew they had them. [Witness for the Prosecution, also published in The Hound of Death and Other Stories.]

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.

To rush into explanations is always a sign of weakness.

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.

But I know human nature, my friend, and I tell you that, suddenly confronted with the possibility of being tried for murder, the most innocent person will lose his head and do the most absurd things.

Crime is terribly revealing. Try and vary your methods as you will, your tastes, your habits, your attitude of mind, and your soul is revealed by your actions.

One of the luckiest things that can happen to you in life is to have a happy childhood.

When you find that people are not telling you the truth---look out!

Tea! Bless ordinary everyday afternoon tea!

Words are such uncertain things, they so often sound well but mean the opposite of what one thinks they do.

No, my friend, I am not drunk. I have just been to the dentist, and need not return for another six months! Is it not the most beautiful thought? --Poirot

To all those who lead monotonous lives in the hope that they may experience at second hand the delights and dangers of adventure. [author's dedication]

Oh yeah," Zane says and smirks at me. "I had her for dinner once. Best meal of my life.

Where there are bees there are flowers, and wherever there are flowers there is new life and hope.

Love can be a very frightening thing.’ ‘That is why most great love stories are tragedies.

At my time of life, one knows that the worst is usually true.

You should employ your little grey cells

It had come about ex­act­ly in the way things hap­pened in books.

Hercule Poirot: I am an imbecile. I see only half of the picture. Miss Lemon: I don't even see that.

Sometimes I feel sure he is as mad as a hatter and then, just as he is at his maddest, I find there is a method in his madness.

Many homicidal lunatics are very quiet, unassuming people. Delightful fellows.

There is no detective in England equal to a spinster lady of uncertain age with plenty of time on her hands.

It's what's in yourself that makes you happy or unhappy.

Intuition is like reading a word without having to spell it out. A child can't do that because it has had so little experience. A grown-up person knows the word because they've seen it often before.

One little Indian left all alone, he went out and hanged himself and then there were none.

What good is money if it can't buy happiness?

What's wrong with my proposition?" Poirot rose. "If you will forgive me for being personal-I do not like your face, M. Ratchett.

One of us in this very room is in fact the murderer.

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.

A woman who doesn't lie is a woman without imagination and without sympathy.

I always think loyalty's such a tiresome virtue.

People should be interested in books, not their authors.

The happy people are failures because they are on such good terms with themselves they don't give a damn.

But in Syria there is a saying: inside the person you know, there is a person you do not know.

Our weapon is our knowledge. But remember, it may be a knowledge we may not know that we possess.

Elephants can remember, but we are human beings and mercifully human beings can forget.

I remember who I am when I'm with you.

I don’t understand why people are such snobs about books. If you enjoy romances, read them. I don’t want Thanksgiving dinner every day. Some days I want a ham sandwich and a dozen chocolate chip cookies. And some days I want to read Jane Austen, and other days I want to read Agatha Christie, or maybe some author that no one has ever heard of who writes fun books that make me smile.

There was something magical about an island—the mere word suggested fantasy. You lost touch with the world—an island was a world of its own. A world, perhaps, from which you might never return.

I thrust the picture at his chest. He takes it and squints at it in the softening light. Then his eyes widen. "Holy shit," he breathes. "Is this the girl that ate you?" "Ha, no. You're funny." I snatch my picture back. "So I was super fat. It's my father's fault. He never hugged me." "So, what, you ate him?

[A God-thing is] when something happens in your life, and you look at it and can't explain how or why it happened, but you know there's a reason for it. You know that God is doing something in your life, and it changes you. There's no other way to explain it except to see it as a God thing.

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....

I'm sorry, but I do hate this differentiation between the sexes. 'The modern girl has a thoroughly businesslike attitude to life' That sort of thing. It's not a bit true! Some girls are businesslike and some aren't. Some men are sentimental and muddle-headed, others are clear-headed and logical. There are just different types of brains.

Ah, but life is like that! It does not permit you to arrange and order it as you will. It will not permit you to escape emotion, to live by the intellect and by reason! You cannot say, 'I will feel so much and no more.' Life, Mr. Welman, whatever else it is, is not reasonable. [Hercule Poirot]

You've a pretty good nerve," said Ratchett. "Will twenty thousand dollars tempt you?" It will not." If you're holding out for more, you won't get it. I know what a thing's worth to me." I, also M. Ratchett." What's wrong with my proposition?" Poirot rose. "If you will forgive me for being personal - I do not like your face, M. Ratchett," he said.

It often seems to me that's all detective work is, wiping out your false starts and beginning again." "Yes, it is very true, that. And it is just what some people will not do. They conceive a certain theory, and everything has to fit into that theory. If one little fact will not fit it, they throw it aside. But it is always the facts that will not fit in that are significant.

People with a grudge against the world are always dangerous. They seem to think life owes them something. I've known many an invalid who has suffered worse and been cut off from life much more . . . and they've managed to lead happy contented lives. It's what's in yourself that makes you happy or unhappy.