The whole thing was like a nine-month ocean voyage to which you never got acclimatized.

We owe most of our great inventions and most of the achievements of genius to idleness either enforced or voluntary.

Once I went professionally to an archaeological expedition-and I learnt something there. In the course of an excavation, when something comes up out of the ground, everything is cleared away very carefully all around it. You take away the loose earth, and you scrape here and there with a knife until finally your object is there, all alone, ready to be drawn and photographed with no extraneous matter confusing it. That is what I have been seeking to do-clear away the extraneous matter so that we can see the truth-the naked shining truth.

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.

a great man always knows better than to explain unless an explanation is demanded. To rush into explanations and excuses is always a sign of weakness.

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

I never can stand seeing people pleased with themselves,” said Joanna. “It arouses all my worst instincts.