Murder Of Roger Ackroyd Quotes

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

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

You should employ your little grey cells

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.

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.

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.

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

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

The things young women read nowadays and profess to enjoy positively frighten me.

In fact-Dr. Sheppard!

What one does not tell to Papa Poirot he finds out.

It is completely unimportant,” said Poirot. “That is why it is so interesting,” he added softly.

always bear in mind that the person who speaks may be lying

I demand of you a thousand pardons, monsieur. I am without defence. For some months now I cultivate the marrows. This morning suddenly I enrage myself with these marrows. I send them to promenade themselves - alas! not only mentally but physically. I seize the biggest. I hurl him over the wall. Monsieur, I am ashamed. I prostrate myself.

There's no doubt about what the man's profession has been. He's a retired hairdresser. Look at that moustache of his.

Everything is simple, if you arrange the facts methodically

Never worry about what you say to a man. They’re so conceited that they never believe you mean it if it’s unflattering.

Every new development that arises is like the shake you give to a kaleidoscope—the thing changes entirely in aspect.

Things are simple as a rule

Women observe subconsciously a thousand little details ... and they call the result intuition.

My sister continued: 'What did she die of? Heart failure?' 'Didn't the milkman tell you that?' I inquired sarcastically. Sarcasm is wasted on Caroline. She takes it seriously and answers accordingly. 'He didn't know,' she explained.

It is well at any price to have peace in the home.

You seem to know a hell of a lot about everything, you little foreign cock duck.

The motto of the mongoose family, so Mr Kipling tells us, is: 'Go and find out.' If Caroline ever adopts a crest, I should certainly suggest a mongoose rampant. One might omit the first part of the motto. Caroline can do any amount of finding out by sitting placidly at home.

Women, in my experience, if they once reach the determination to commit suicide, usually wish to reveal the state of mind that led to the fatal action. They covet the limelight.

I felt a distinct pleasure in passing on my own discomfiture.

Les femmes,” generalized Poirot. “They are marvellous! They invent haphazard—and by miracle they are right. Not that it is that, really. 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.

Now there has been a rearrangement of the kaleidoscope.

The chains of habit. We work to attain an object, and the object gained, we find that what we miss is the daily toil.

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

Las mujeres observan de un modo inconsciente mil detalles íntimos, sin saber lo que hacen. Sus subconscientes mezclan esas cositas unas con otras y a eso le llaman intuición.

All the same, lots of women buy their clothes in Paris, and have not, on that account, necessarily poisoned their husbands.

Why, he’s Hercule Poirot! You know who I mean—the private detective. They say he’s done the most wonderful things—just like detectives do in books.

He talked a lot about the little grey cells of the brain, and of their functions. His own, he says, are of the first quality.' 'He would say so,' I remarked bitterly. 'Modesty is certainly not his middle name.

But that is certainly not the sort of information that Caroline is after. She wants to know where he comes from, what he does, whether he is married, what his wife was, or is, like, whether he has children, what his mother’s maiden name was—and so on. Somebody very like Caroline must have invented the questions on passports, I think.

Life is very trying.

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

The history of the marriage was short and painful. To put it bluntly, Mrs Ackroyd was a dipsomaniac. She succeeded in drinking herself into her grave four years after her marriage.

One must always proceed with method. I made an error of judgment asking you that question. Toeach man his own knowledge. You could tell me the details of the patient's physical appearance- nothing there would escape you. If I wanted information about the papers on the desk, Mr. Raymond would have noticed anything there was to see. To find out about the fire, I must ask the man whose business is to observe such things. - Detective Hercule Poirot to Doctor Sheppard

One can press a man as far as one likes—but with a woman one must not press too far. For a woman has at heart a great desire to speak the truth. How many husbands who have deceived their wives go comfortably to their graves, carrying their secret with them! How many wives who have deceived their husbands wreck their lives by throwing the fact in those same husbands’ teeth! They have been pressed too far. In a reckless moment (which they will afterwards regret, bien entendu) they fling safety to the winds and turn at bay, proclaiming the truth with great momentary satisfaction to themselves.

It is odd, 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 burst immediately into indignant speech.

Why not have told me the truth?” he countered. “In a place like this, all Ralph Paton’s doings were bound to be known. If your sister had not happened to pass through the wood that day somebody else would have done

Poirot said "you will find,M.le docteur,if you have much to do with cases of this kind,that they all resemble each other in one thing." "what is that?" I asked curiously "everyone concerned in them has something to hide

My dear Caroline,” I said. “There’s no doubt at all about what the man’s profession has been. He’s a retired hairdresser. Look at that moustache of his.” Caroline dissented. She said that if the man was a hairdresser, he would have wavy hair—not straight. All hairdressers did.

Remorse,” she said, with great gusto. “Remorse?

Os nossos passatempos e entretenimentos podem ser sintetizados numa só palavra: «coscuvilhice».

I do not see why I should be supposed to be totally devoid of intelligence. After all, I read detective stories, and the newspapers, and am a man of quite average ability.

With her was a small dried-up little man, with an aggressive chin and sharp grey eyes, and “lawyer” written all over him.

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

Sheppard at the Breakfast

His name, apparently, is Mr. Porrott—a name which conveys an odd feeling of unreality

There’s no doubt at all about what the man’s profession has been. He’s a retired hairdresser. Look at that moustache of his.

My ideas were completely upset. I could not see Ackroyd taking a hairdresser into his confidence,

he seemed in a great hurry, and anxious to get away.” I have no doubt but that that was the case.

Sarcasm is wasted on Caroline. She takes it seriously and answers accordingly.

Miss Gannett has all the characteristics of my sister Caroline, but she lacks that unerring aim in jumping to conclusions which lends a touch of greatness to Caroline’s manoeuvres.

Beware of the blind—the blind—the little street that has no end to it.” ~Hercule Poirot

and she doesn’t have those peculiar gurgling noises inside which so many parlourmaids seem to have when they wait at table

Caroline merely looked at me with the air of a Christian martyr enjoying martyrdom

The English people, they have a mania for the fresh air,” declared Poirot. “The big air, it is all very well outside, where it belongs. Why admit it to the house?

One can press a man as far as one likes—but with a woman one must not press too far. For a woman has at heart a great desire to speak the truth.

It’s a great relief to people to be able to tell all their troubles to someone.

Our hobbies and recreations can be summed up in the one word, “gossip”.

Everything is simple, if you arrange the facts methodically.

in King’s Abbot we permit people to indulge their little idiosyncrasies freely.

Compréndanme bien: quiero llegar a la verdad. Ésta, por fea que sea, es siempre curiosa y resulta hermosa para el que la busca con afán.

But me, I am old-fashioned. I use the old methods. I work only with the little grey cells.

Young women do not faint nowadays, monsieur, without considerable provocation.

Oh! Uang! Segala kesulitan di dunia ini pasti disebabkan oleh soal uang, atau kekurangan uang.

The wise man does not commit himself. Is not that so?

Now there has been a rearrangement of the kaleidoscope. From a mild discussion of probable wedding presents, we had been jerked into the midst of tragedy. Revolving

Kebenaran betapapun jeleknya, selalu aneh dan indah bagi mereka yang mencarinya.

Anyone would have thought it was Caroline’s uncle who had been murdered.

And a great deal of valuable information,” he added quietly. “Such as –

I have learned to save myself useless emotion

Ackroyd was sitting as I had left him in the armchair before the fire. His head had fallen sideways, and clearly visible, just below the collar of his coat, was a shining piece of twisted metalwork. Parker and I advanced till we stood over the recumbent figure. I heard the butler draw in his breath with a sharp hiss. “Stabbed from be’ind,” he murmured. “‘Orrible!

After all, many crimes have been committed for the sake of less than five hundred pounds. It all depends on what sum is sufficient to break a man. A question of relativity, is it not so?

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

Les femmes,” generalized Poirot. “They are marvellous! They invent haphazard—and by miracle they are right. Not that it is that, really. 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. Me, I am very skilled in psychology. I know these things.

Mrs. Ferrars died on the night of the 16th-17th September—a Thursday. I was sent for at eight o’clock on the morning of Friday the 17th. There was nothing to be done. She had been dead some hours.

She wouldn’t tell me his name,” said Ackroyd slowly. “As a matter of fact, she didn’t actually say that it was a man. But of course—” “Of course,” I agreed. “It must have been a man. And you’ve no suspicion at all?

The chains of habit. We work to attain an object, and the object gained, we find that what we miss is the daily toil. And mark you, monsieur, my work was interesting work. The most interesting work there is in the world.

Women observe subconsciously a thousand details without knowing to do so. Subconscious mind add these things together. And they call the result "intuition". Me, I am very skilled in psychology. I know these things. (Poirot)

I am sorry to say I detest Mrs Ackroyd. She is all chains and teeth and bones. A most unpleasant woman. She has small pale flinty blue eyes, and however gushing her words may be, those eyes of hers always remain coldly speculative.

Women observe subconsciously a thousand details without knowing to do so. Subconscious mind add these things together. And they call the result "intuition". Me, I am very skilled in psychology. I know these things. - Hercule Poirot

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. Me, I am very skilled in psychology. I know these things.

But you can figure to yourself, monsieur, that a man may work towards a certain object, may labour and toil to attain a certain kind of leisure and occupation, and then find that, after all, he yearns for the old busy days, and the old occupations that he thought himself so glad to leave?

If those walls could speak,” I murmured. Poirot shook his head. “A tongue is not enough,” he said. “They would have to have also eyes and ears. But do not be too sure that these dead things”—he touched the top of the bookcase as he spoke—“are always dumb. To me they speak sometimes—chairs, tables—they have their message!

Caroline merely continued to look omniscient, which so annoyed me that I went on: “Perhaps you will tell me, Caroline, if I have a medical degree or if I have not?” “You have the medical degree, I dare say, James—at least, I mean I know you have. But you’ve no imagination whatever.” “Having endowed you with a treble portion, there was none left over for me,” I said drily.

Les femmes,” generalized Poirot. “They are marvelous! They invent haphazard—and by miracle they are right. Not that it is that, really. 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. Me, I am very skilled in psychology. I know these things.

Degli uomini ci si può approfittare a volontà, ma con le donne non bisogna tirare troppo la corda. Perché la donna, in fondo al cuore, desidera sempre dire la verità. Quanti mariti ingannano la moglie portandosi il segreto nella tomba? Quante mogli ingannano il marito e poi gli rovinano la vita sbattendogli in faccia la verità? E lo fanno perché qualcuno ha tirato troppo la corda. Seguendo un impulso improvviso (del quale si pentiranno, bien entendu), dimenticano ogni prudenza e si ribellano, proclamano la verità concedendosi un grande sollievo momentaneo.

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, written by Christie in 1926, is perhaps the most quintessential golden-age murder mystery ever written in absolutely every way—except one. But it is this one spectacular difference that sets it apart from other books of the era and that catapulted Agatha Christie into the upper echelons of the genre. In fact, as the ending was so unorthodox and apparently broke the rules of the Detection Club’s oath—tongue-in-cheek though they were—there was a movement to expel Christie from the club entirely! Only a vote by fellow female crime writer Dorothy L. Sayers saved her. If this doesn’t make you intrigued to read the book, you don’t need to just take my word for it—in 2013, nearly ninety years after its publication, the British Crime Writers’ Association voted it the best crime novel ever, calling it “the finest example of the genre ever penned.” It features typical golden-era elements within the text, like a floor plan of all the rooms of the house and heavily buried clues, and I’m of the opinion that the only way to do this particular book justice is to read it. Don’t watch an adaptation, don’t listen to an audiobook, and don’t use an e-reading device and deny yourself the pleasure of the rustling pages peppered with nuance. Buy a copy of the book and read it. It’s the only way you can read between the lines of this clever tale.

Let us take a man - a very ordinary man. A man with no idea of murder in his heart. There is in him somewhere a strain of weakness - deep down. It has so far never been called into play... But let us suppose that something occurs... He may stumble by accident on a secret - a secret involving life or death to someone. And his first impulse will be to speak out - to do his duty as an honest citizen. And then the strain of weakness tells... That is the beginning... He is not the same man he was - say, a year ago. His moral fibre is blunted. He is desperate. He is fighting a losing battle, and he is prepared to take any means that come to his hand, for exposure means ruin to him. And so - the dagger strikes... Afterwards, the dagger removed, he will be himself again, normal, kindly. But if the need again arises, then once more he will strike.

The Hercule Poirot Reading List It is possible to read the Poirot stories in any order. If you want to consider them chronologically (in terms of Poirot’s lifetime), we recommend the following: ❑ The Mysterious Affair at Styles [1920] ❑ The Murder on the Links [1923] ❑ The Regatta Mystery and Other Stories (US Short Story Collection) [1939] ❑ Poirot Investigates (Short Story Collection) [1924] ❑ Poirot’s Early Cases (Short Story Collection) [1974] ❑ The Murder of Roger Ackroyd [1926] ❑ The Big Four [1927] ❑ The Mystery of the Blue Train [1928] ❑ Peril at End House [1932] ❑ Lord Edgware Dies [1933] ❑ Murder on the Orient Express [1934] ❑ Three Act Tragedy [1935] ❑ Death in the Clouds [1935] ❑ Poirot and the Regatta Mystery (Published in The Complete Short Stories: Hercule Poirot) [1936] ❑ The ABC Murders [1936] ❑ Murder in Mesopotamia [1936] ❑ Cards on the Table [1936] ❑ The Witness for the Prosecution and Other Stories (US Short Story Collection) [1948] ❑ Murder in the Mews (Short Story Collection) [1938] ❑ Dumb Witness [1937] ❑ Death on the Nile [1937] ❑ Appointment with Death [1937] ❑ Hercule Poirot’s Christmas [1938] ❑ Sad Cypress [1940] ❑ One, Two Buckle My Shoe [1940] ❑ Evil Under the Sun [1941] ❑ Five Little Pigs [1942] ❑ The Hollow [1946] ❑ The Labours of Hercules (Short Story Collection) [1947] ❑ Taken at the Flood [1945] ❑ Mrs. McGinty’s Dead [1952] ❑ After the Funeral [1953] ❑ Hickory Dickory Dock [1955] ❑ Hercule Poirot and the Greenshore Folly [2014] ❑ Dead Man’s Folly [1956] ❑ Cat Among the Pigeons [1959] ❑ Double Sin and Other Stories (US Short Story Collection) [1961] ❑ The Under Dog and Other Stories (US Short Story Collection) [1951] ❑ The Harlequin Tea Set and Other Stories (US Short Story Collection) [1997] ❑ The Clocks [1963] ❑ Third Girl [1966] ❑ Hallowe’en Party [1969] ❑ Elephants Can Remember [1972] ❑ Curtain: Poirot’s Last Case [1975]

My dear Poirot," I said, smiling a little, "whatever else I may be, I am not a fool.

The sound I had heard, therefore, could not have been that of a window being shut down.

detestable, bombastic, tiresome, ego-centric little creep”. 

كما كان لديّ صديق، صديقٌ لم يفارقني لسنوات عديدة. كانت تنتابه أحيانًا حماقةٌ تخيف المرء، ومع ذلك كان عزيزًا عليّ كثيرًا. تصوّر أنني أفتقد حتى حماقته وغباءه. أفتقد سذاجته ونظرته البريئة النزيهة للأشياء، وأفتقد سروري من إدهاشه وإسعاده بمواهبي الفائقة.. كل هذه الأشياء أفتقدها بطريقة لا أستطيع وصفها لك.

واضحٌ أنه حلّاق متقاعد. من يعرف أسرار الطبيعة البشرية أكثر من الحلاق؟

A little idea of mine, that was all. Me, I am famous for my little ideas.