If I were at any time to set out on a career of deceit, it would be of Miss Marple that I should be afraid.

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

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

To feel admiration for a man all through one's married life would, I think, be excessively tedious.

And, of course, afterwards -- one always hears these things afterwards, so much better if one heard them before -- we found out that dozens of empty brandy bottles were taken out of the house every week!

There hung about her the restrained energy of a whiplash.

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]