Patricia Wentworth Quotes

Most of the things one worries about never happen.

I told you she had an inconsequent mind. That's putting it much too mildly. When it comes to anything like evidence, she hasn't really got a mind at all - she just dives into a sort of lumber-room and brings out odds and ends.

It is always better to say too little than too much.

Henry, for heaven's sake! You can't propose when I'm fainting!

Her name is Maud Silver. Louisa says she has solved many difficult cases besides being an extremely expert knitter.

A good many established writers seem to have the feeling that some day they are going to be found out, revealed as frauds.

You can't do such a lot and do it all so well and have much time left for the ordinary human feelings.

Take things as they come. Take things as they are. What does it matter? There's one end to everything.

...and thought how embarrassing Mabel's girlish enthusiasms had become. To look 60 and behave as if you were 16 was a social tragedy.

She was a little bit of a thing with a light untidy fluff of hair and a nose which went pink in moments of emotion. It was pink now and it quivered. She dabbed aimlessly at her hair and three of the remaining pins fell out. William stooped to pick them up, and wished he hadn't. He said he thought he would go to bed, and went.

When you've just made the most complete fool of yourself, you feel the need of a specially high horse to ride.

When there is too much to say it is easier to say nothing at all.

It's surprising how soon you can get used to having money. It's much easier than getting used to not having it.

Being in a rage was rather like being out in a thunderstorm - you couldn't hear yourself think.

A lie that is half a truth is ever the hardest to fight.

There is a country proverb which says, 'If you don't trouble trouble - trouble won't trouble you.

The most trying moments in human experience were those in which there was nothing to be done except to wait.

Mary didn't know just what prompted her answer. She was the most candid of women, but you don't tell a man everything where another woman is concerned.

The things that happened in your body were never as bad as the things that happened in your mind.

You cannot divide minds into sexes. Each human being presents an individual problem.

I think it is right that you should know I am here in the capacity of a private enquiry agent."
If she had announced that she was there in the capacity of a Fairy Godmother or of First Murderer, she could hardly have surprised him more. In fact, the Fairy Godmother would have seemed quite appropriate by comparison.

I do not approve of children being beaten. It is always a confession of failure.

Any road is bound to arrive somewhere if you follow it far enough

One cannot withdraw from the life of the community. Injury to one member of it cannot fail to be the concern of all.

When married people begin to talk about their rights, it means something has gone pretty far wrong between them.

It isn't good tactics to ask for something that you know will be refused.

If you cannot get what you want, common sense suggests that you should put your mind to wanting what you can get.

Emotion which you do not share can become intolerable.

There is and always has been for me a peculiar need to write. This is very different from wanting to be a writer. To be a writer always seemed something so far removed from my talents and abilities and imaginings that it didn't afflict me at all as a notion when I was young. But I was always conscious that I wanted to write.

Nobody likes to be accused of a virtue.

Anger was both a disfiguring and a revealing passion.

The fact is, people who don't have any misfortunes are very irritating to their neighbours. No opportunities for popping in with condolences and new-laid eggs. No visits to the afflicted. No opportunities for the milk of human kindness to flow. Naturally it doesn't.

Mary Stuart wrote, 'My end is in my beginning.' It is easier to agree with her than to decide what is the beginning, and what is the end.