Agatha Christie Quotes

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

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

One doesn't recognize the really important moments in one's life until it's too late.

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

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.

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

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

Then there are some minor points that strike me as suggestive - for instance, the position of Mrs. Hubbard's sponge bag, the name of Mrs. Armstrong's mother, the detective methods of Mr. Hardman, the suggestion of Mr. MacQueen that Ratchett himself destroyed the charred note we found, Princess Dragomiroff's Christian name, and a grease spot on a Hungarian passport.

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

The tragedy of life is that people do not change.

If one sticks too rigidly to one's principles, one would hardly see anybody.

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.

Ideas are like everything else. They've got to be marketed.

Hasting - There are times when it is one's duty to assert oneself.

There is nothing so dangerous for anyone who has something to hide as conversation!... A human being, Hastings, cannot resist theopportunity to reveal himself and express his personality which conversation gives him. Every time he will give himself away.

An archaeologist is the best husband a woman can have. The older she gets the more interested he is in her.

I suppose without curiosity a man would be a tortoise. Very comfortable life, a tortoise has.

There speaks the passion and the rebellion that go with red hair. My second wife had red hair. She was a beautiful woman, and she loved me. Strange, is it not? I have always admired red-haired women. Your hair is very beautiful. There are other things I like about you. Your spirit, your courage; the fact that you have a mind of your own. ~Mr. Aristides

Everybody is very much alike, really. But fortunately, perhaps, they don't realise it. - Miss Marple

Courage is the resolution to face the unforeseen.

... the belief in a superstratum of human beings ... is the most evil of all beliefs. For when you say, 'I am not as other men' -- you have lost the two most valuable qualities we have ever tried to attain: -- humility and brotherhood.

Too much mercy... often resulted in further crimes which were fatal to innocent victims who need not have been victims if justice had been put first and mercy second.

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

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

The saddest thing in life and the hardest to live through, is the knowledge that there is someone you love very much whom you cannot save from suffering.

In old days the public didn't really mind much about accuracy, but nowadays readers take it upon themselves to write to authors on every possible occasion, pointing out flaws.

What an absurdity to go and bury oneself in South America, where they are always having revolutions.

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

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

One of the saddest things in life, is the things one remembers.

To every problem, there is a most simple solution.

you cannot give to people what they are incapable of receiving.

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.

There is something about conscious tact that is very irritating.

all women, without in the least meaning it, consider every man they meet as a possible husband for themselves or for their best friend.

there is no fanatic like a religious fanatic.

The first time you do a thing is always exciting.

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.

People who can be very good can be very bad too.

Very few of us are what we seem.

Time does not dispose of a question - it only presents it anew in a different guise.

Desperate ills need desperate remedies.

The lure of the past came up to grab me. To see a dagger slowly appearing, with its gold glint, through the sand was romantic. The carefulness of lifting pots and objects from the soil filled me with a longing to be an archaeologist myself.

Very unfortunately, she had no husband. She had never had a husband, and therefore did not kill a husband.

Exactly! It is absurd - improbable - it cannot be. So I myself have said. And yet, my friend, there it is! One cannot escape from the facts.

To rush into explanations is always a sign of weakness.

too much safety is abhorrent to the nature of a human being.

If anyone is really determined to lend you a book, you never can get out of it!