Hercule Poirot Quotes

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.

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

Everybody said, "Follow your heart". I did, it got broken

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.

Never do anything yourself that others can do for you.

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

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

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

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.

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

To every problem, there is a most simple solution.

Every murderer is probably somebody's old friend.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

I mean, imagine how some unfortunate Master Criminal would feel, on coming down to do a murder at the old Grange, if he found that not only was Sherlock Holmes putting in the weekend there, but Hercule Poirot, as well." ~ Bertram "Bertie" Wooster

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

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.

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]

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

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.

You should employ your little grey cells

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

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

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.

I always think loyalty's such a tiresome virtue.

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.

At the small table, sitting very upright, was one of the ugliest old ladies he had ever seen. It was an ugliness of distinction - it fascinated rather than repelled.

They tried to be too clever---and that was their undoing.

I did not deceive you, mon ami. At most, I permitted you to deceive yourself.

Women observe subconsciously a thousand little details, without knowing that they are doing so. Their subconscious mind adds these little things together—and they call the result intuition.

Everyone likes talking about himself. - Hercule Poirot

She was a lucky woman who had established a happy knack of writing what quite a lot of people wanted to read.

Two people rarely see the same thing.

I like to see an angry Englishman," said Poirot. "They are very amusing. The more emotional they feel the less command they have of language.

The human face is, after all, nothing more nor less than a mask.

How true is the saying that man was forced to invent work in order to escape the strain of having to think.

The body—the cage—is everything of the most respectable—but through the bars, the wild animal looks out.

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.

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.

He laughs best who laughs at the end.

I am not one to rely upon the expert procedure. It is the psychology I seek, not the fingerprint or the cigarette ash.

To care passionately for another human creature brings always more sorrow than joy; but at the same time, Elinor, one would not be without experience. Anyone who has never really loved has never really lived..

Mr. Satterthwaite looked cheered. Suddenly an idea struck him. His jaw fell. "My goodness," he cried, "I've only just realized it! That rascal, with his poisoned cocktail! Anyone might have drunk it! It might have been me!" "There is an even more terrible possibility that you have not considered," said Poirot. "Eh?" "It might have been me," said Hercule Poirot.

To count - really and truly to count - a woman must have goodness or brains.

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.

You have a tendency, Hastings, to prefer the least likely. That, no doubt, is from reading too many detective stories.

Evil never goes unpunished, Monsieur. But the punishment is sometimes secret.

Do you know my friend that each one of us is a dark mystery, a maze of conflicting passions and desire and aptitudes?

The past is the father of the present.

For in the long run, either through a lie, or through truth, people were bound to give themselves away …

Unless you are good at guessing, it is not much use being a detective.

Imagination is a good servant, and a bad master.

Speech, so a wise old Frenchman said to me once, is an invention of man's to prevent him from thinking.

Oh! money! All the troubles in the world can be put down to money—or the lack of it.

One must make one's own mistakes

I'm not often bored,' I assured her. "Life's not long enough for that.

... one may live in a big house and yet have no comfort.

The heart of a woman who loves will forgive many blows.

No sign, so far, of anything sinister—but I live in hope.

Who are you? You don't belong to the police?' 'I am better than the police,' said Poirot. He said it without conscious arrogance. It was, to him, a simple statement of fact.

Sensationalism dies quickly, fear is long-lived.

It is the quietest and meekest people who are often capable of the most sudden and unexpected violence for the reason that when their control does snap, it goes entirely.

One knows so little. When one knows more it is too late.

Authors were shy, unsociable creatures, atoning for their lack of social aptitude by inventing their own companions and conversations.

Some of us, in the words of the divine Greta Garbo, want to be alone.

I admit," I said, "that a second murder in a book often cheers things up." - Hastings

And so could you know it if you would only use the brains the good God has given you. Sometimes I really am tempted to believe that by inadvertence, He passed you by.

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

When will a woman lie? Sometimes for herself. Usually for the man she loves. Always for her children.

He played the part of the devil too successfully. But he was not the devil. Au fond, he was a stupid man. And so - he died." "Because he was stupid?" "It is the sin that is never forgiven and always punished, madame.

Now I am old-fashioned. A woman, I consider, should be womanly. I have no patience with the modern neurotic girl who jazzes from morning to night, smokes like a chimney, and uses language which would make a billingsgate fishwoman blush!

To keep something wild is far more difficult than to preserve it.

A weak man in a corner is more dangerous than a strong man. (Inspector Miller)

Ah! Madame, I reserve the explanations for the last chapter.

If the little grey cells are not exercised, they grow the rust.

I have often had occasion to notice how, where a direct question would fail to elicit a response, a false assumption brings instant information in the form of a contradiction.

Oh, I'm not afraid of death! What have I got to live for after all? I suppose you believe it's very wrong to kill a person who has injured you-even if they've taken away everything you had in the world?

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.

A man doesn't want 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)

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!

You are the patient one, Mademoiselle,' said Poirot to Miss Debenham. She shrugged her shoulders slightly. 'What else can one do?' You are a philosopher, Mademoiselle.' That implies a detached attitude. I think my attitude is more selfish. I have learned to save myself useless emotion.

All around us are people, of all classes, of all nationalities, of all ages. For three days these people, these strangers to one another, are brought together. They sleep and eat under one roof, they cannot get away from each other. At the end of three days they part, they go their several ways, never, perhaps, to see each other again.

Trains are relentless things, aren't they, Monsieur Poirot? People are murdered and die, but they go on just the same. I am talking nonsense, but you know what I mean." "Yes, yes, I know. Life is like a train, Mademoiselle. It goes on. And it is a good thing that that is so." "Why?" "Because the train gets to its journey's end at last, and there is a proverb about that in your language, Mademoiselle." "'Journey's end in lovers meeting.'" Lenox laughed. "That is not going to be true for me." "Yes--yes, it is true. You are young, younger than you yourself know. Trust the train, Mademoiselle, for it is le bon Dieu who drives it." The whistle of the engine came again. "Trust the train, Mademoiselle," murmured Poirot again. "And trust Hercule Poirot. He knows.

Mademoiselle, I beseech you, do not do what you are doing.” “Leave dear Linnet alone, you mean!” “It is deeper than that. Do not open your heart to evil.” Her lips fell apart; a look of bewilderment came into her eyes. Poirot went on gravely: “Because—if you do—evil will come…Yes, very surely evil will come…It will enter in and make its home within you, and after a little while it will no longer be possible to drive it out.

Death, mademoiselle, unfortunately creates a prejudice. A prejudice in favour of the deceased. I heard what you said just now to my friend Hastings. ‘A nice bright girl with no men friends.’ You said that in mockery of the newspapers. And it is very true—when a young girl is dead, that is the kind of thing that is said. She was bright. She was happy. She was sweet-tempered. She had not a care in the world. She had no undesirable acquaintances. There is a great charity always to the dead. Do you know what I should like this minute? I should like to find someone who knew Elizabeth Barnard and who does not know she is dead! Then, perhaps, I should hear what is useful to me—the truth.