there must be a routine to life, a framework to hang life on. Routines were what kept you sane, gave you something to do at this moment and at that, definite places to go, positive things to do. Abandon it and that way madness lies.

To say that Agatha Christie’s characters are cardboard cut-outs is an insult to cardboard cut-outs.

To be a classic, a novel should be original.

I try, and I think I succeed, in making my readers feel sorry for my psychopaths, because I do.

I can't exist without books.

the English, although partakers in the most variable and quixotic climate in the world, never become used to its vagaries, but comment upon them with shock and resentment as if all their lives had been spent in the predictable monsoon.

Many emotions go under the name of love, and almost any one of them will for a while divert the mind from the real, true, and perfect thing.