Agatha Christie Quotes

It was a cheap school, you know, and the teachers weren't very good. They could never answer questions properly."
"Very few teachers can," I{Jerry}said.
"Why not? They ought to."
I agreed. ~ Agatha Christie

If you will forgive me for being personal - I do not like your face, M. Ratchett,' Poirot said. ~ Agatha Christie

He wanted her cooperation, her sympathy, her active and intellectual help. He wanted her, not her heart, but her brains, and those material advantages which birth had given her. - Alexandra Farraday ~ Agatha Christie

Where large sums of money are concerned, it is advisable to trust nobody. ~ Agatha Christie

In an Empire where rats ruled, he was the king of the rats. ~ Agatha Christie

Human curiosity. Such a very interesting thing. Think of what we owe to it throughout history. It is said to be usually associated with the cat. Curiosity killed the cat. But I should say really that the Greeks were the inventors of curiosity. ~ Agatha Christie

Men are like that... They remain boys... ~ Agatha Christie

He, of course, is a liar, but that doesn't really matter because, if you know liars are liars, it comes to the same thing. ~ Agatha Christie

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. ~ Agatha Christie

A brave new world. There isn't anything really like that, is there?"
"You don't believe in it?"
"Do you?"
"There is always a brave new world," said Poirot, "but only, you know, for very special people. The lucky ones. The ones who carry the making of that world within themselves. ~ Agatha Christie

I know those kinds of lenses, said Tuppence. By the time you've adjusted the shutter and stopped down and calculated the exposure and kept your eye on the spirit level, your brain gives out and you yearn for the simple browning. ~ Agatha Christie

God bless my soul, woman, the more personal you are the better! This is a story of human beings - not dummies! Be personal - be prejudiced - be catty - be anything you please! Write the thing your own way. We can always prune out the bits that are libellous afterwards! ~ Agatha Christie

I suppose next time I come home I shall find you wearing false moustaches - or are you doing so now?'
Poirot winced. His moustaches had always been his sensitive point. He was inordinately proud of them. My words touched him on the raw.
'No, no, indeed, mon ami. That day, I pray the good God, is still far off. The false moustaches! Quelle Horreur!'
He tugged at them vigorously to assure me of their genuine character.
'Well, they are very luxuriant still,' I said.
'N'est-ce pas? Never, in the whole of London, have I seen a pair of moustaches to equal mine.'
A good job too, I thought privately. ~ Agatha Christie

It's quite possible that the delusions of today may be the proved scientific facts of tomorrow. ~ Agatha Christie

A murderer is always a gambler. And, like many gamblers, a murderer often does not know when to stop. With each crime his opinion of his own abilities is strengthened. His sense of proportion is warped. He does not say, 'I have been clever and lucky!' No, he says only, 'l have been clever!' And his opinion of his cleverness grows... and then, roes amis, the ball spins ~ Agatha Christie

Got on! Got on! It's not a question of getting on. That's the wrong view altogether. The Classics aren't a ladder leading to quick success. ~ Agatha Christie

The contemporary historian never writes such a true history as the historian of a later generation. ~ Agatha Christie

A little difficult to know where you were with Elinor. She didn't reveal much of what she thought and felt about things. He liked that about her. He hated people who reeled off their thoughts and feelings to you, who took it for granted that you wanted to know all their mechanism. Reserve was always more interesting. ~ Agatha Christie

You weren't quite accurate just now."
"I? Not accurate?" Poirot sounded affronted. ~ Agatha Christie

If there were only any peace in Egypt I should like it better," said Mrs. Allerton. "But you can never be alone anywhere. Someone is always pestering you for money, or offering you donkeys, or beads, or expeditions to native villages, or duck shooting. ~ Agatha Christie

She didn't give George any too easy a time when she was alive. She was one of those semi-invalids. I believe she had really something wrong with her. But whatever it was she played it for all it was worth. She was capricious, exacting and unreasonable. She complained from morning to night. George was expected to wait on her, hand and foot and everything he did was always wrong and he got cursed for it. Most men, I'm fully convinced, would have hit her with a hatchet long ago. ~ Agatha Christie

If the thing you want beyond anything cannot be, it is much better to recognize it and go forward, instead of dwelling on one's regrets and hopes. ~ Agatha Christie

Men don't understand how their mannerisms can get on women's nerves so that you feel you just have to snap. ~ Agatha Christie

I think there's something heavenly about numbers, anyway. ~ Agatha Christie

Let me tell you this, Hastings. She would never forgive me if I let Alfred Inglethorp, her husband, be arrested now - when a word from me could save him! ~ Agatha Christie

There are, of course, the people who revolve around themselves
but I agree with you, she's not one of that kind. She's totally uninterested in herself. And yet she's got a strong character
there must be something. I thought at first it was her art
but it isn't. I've never met anyone so detached from life. That's dangerous.'
'Dangerous? What do you mean?'
'Well, you see
it must mean an obsession of some kind, and obsessions are always dangerous. ~ Agatha Christie

Sensationalism dies quickly, fear is long-lived. ~ Agatha Christie

Was there such a thing as a world of romance and adventure somewhere? Where there women whose beauty intoxicated? Was there such a thing as love that devoured one like a flame? ~ Agatha Christie

I often wonder why the whole world is so prone to generalise. Generalisations are seldom if ever true and are usually utterly inaccurate. ~ Agatha Christie

You will go to the lady and say certain things as i instruct you
Suppose she sends for the police?
She will not send for the police
You cannot know that !
Mon cher, practically speaking, i know EVERYTHING ~ Agatha Christie

Women are fiends-absolute fiends. ~ Agatha Christie

It's a rotten job, but somebody's got to do it. ~ Agatha Christie

Most successes are unhappy. That's why they are successes - they have to reassure themselves about themselves by achieving something that the world will notice. ~ Agatha Christie

Surely," said Miss Marple, aghast at an idea that had come into her mind, "there can't be a bond of ruthlessness between us?" Was she, Jane Marple - could she ever be - ruthless? "D'you know," said Miss Marple to herself, "it's extraordinary, I never thought about it before. I believe, you know, I could be ruthless ... . ~ Agatha Christie

But surely for everything you love you have to pay some price. ~ Agatha Christie

Down the steep track into the village a car was coming. A car so fantastically powerful, so superlatively beautiful that it had all the nature of an apparition. ~ Agatha Christie

It is curious to look back over life, over all the varying incidents and scenes - such a multitude of odds and ends. Out of them all what has mattered? What lies behind the selection that memory has made? What makes us choose the things that we have remembered? It is as though one went to a great trunk full of junk in an attic and plunged one's hands into it and said, 'I will have this - and this - and this. ~ Agatha Christie

I may," said Poirot in a completely unconvinced tone, "be wrong."
Morton smiled. "But that doesn't often happen to you?"
"No. Though I will admit - yes, I am forced to admit - that it has happened to me."
"I must say I'm glad to hear it! To be always right must be sometimes monotonous."
"I do not find it so," Poirot assured him. ~ Agatha Christie

Of course. I understand."
"One of your brilliant mentality could not fail to do so, Hastings. ~ Agatha Christie

When will a woman lie? Sometimes for herself. Usually for the man she loves. Always for her children. ~ Agatha Christie

Her real passion in life was the perfection of a filing system beside which all other filing systems should sink into oblivion. She dreamed of such a system at night. ~ Agatha Christie

Loyalty it is a pestilential thing in crime. Again and again it obscures the truth. ~ Agatha Christie

Talk and tea is his specialty," said Giles. "He has about five cups of tea a day. But he works splendidly when we are looking. ~ Agatha Christie

Ulick Norman Owen - Una Nancy Owen - each time, that is to say, U. N. Owen. Or by a slight stretch of fancy, UNKNOWN! ~ Agatha Christie

I, myself, was always recognized ... as the "slow one" in the family. It was quite true, and I knew it and accepted it. Writing and spelling were always terribly difficult for me. My letters were without originality. I was ... an extraordinarily bad speller and have remained so until this day. ~ Agatha Christie

I like murder mysteries, the Agatha Christie kinds of things where you know that it's all going to be neatly wound up at the end. ~ Stephen Sondheim

I was born to live dangerously. ~ Agatha Christie

Intuition is like reading a word without having to spell it out. A child can't do that because it has had so little experience. A grown-up person knows the word because they've seen it often before. ~ Agatha Christie

People more often kill those they love than those they hate. Possibly because only the people you love can really make life unendurable to you. ~ Agatha Christie

...the real tragedy of life was that you got what you wanted... ~ Agatha Christie

I know when a couple are really in love with each other. And by that I do not mean just sexually attracted. There is too much talk about sex, too much attention is paid to it. I do not mean that anything about sex is wrong. That is nonsense. But sex cannot take the place of love, it goes with love, but cannot succeed by itself. ~ Agatha Christie

If you place your head in a lion's mouth, then you cannot complain one day if he happens to bite it off. ~ Agatha Christie

I think you are wise. You haven't got what it takes for this job. You are like Rosemary's father. He couldn't understand Lenin's dictum: 'Away with softness.'"
I thought of Hercule Poirot's words.
"I'm content," I said, "to be human ... "
We sat there in silence, each of use convinced that the other's point of view was wrong. ~ Agatha Christie

Mrs. McGinty's dead..how did she die?
down on one knee..just like I
mrs. McGinty's dead..how did she die?
holding her hand out..just like I
mrs. McGinty's dead.. how did she die?
sticking her neck out..just like I ~ Agatha Christie

One doesn't want to die young. Sometimes one has to. ~ Agatha Christie

I mean that if you are not absolutely sure of a thing, it is so difficult to commit yourself to a definite course of action. ~ Agatha Christie

Born poor doesn't mean you've got to stay poor. Money's queer. It goes where it's wanted. ~ Agatha Christie

Mr. Jesmond made a peculiar noise rather like a hen who has decided to lay an egg and then thought better of it. ~ Agatha Christie

There is, as Miss Marple would say, a lot of human nature in all of us. ~ Agatha Christie

Meanwhile we have learnt something, and to know is to be prepared. ~ Agatha Christie

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

At a small table, sitting very upright, was one of the ugliest old ladies he had ever seen. It was an ugliness of distinction- it fascinated rather than repelled. She sat very upright. Round her neck was a collar of very large pearls which, improbable though it seemed, were real. Her hands were covered with rings. Her sable coat was pushed back on her shoulders. A very small and expensive black toque was hideously unbecoming to the yellow, toad-like face beneath it. ~ Agatha Christie

The typists might have been so many blackbeetles. ~ Agatha Christie

Now, as I expect you know, there is nothing more cruel than talk, and there is nothing more difficult to combat. When people say things behind your back there is nothing you can refute or deny, and the rumours go on growing and growing, and no one can stop them. I ~ Agatha Christie

England was in a funny state, a different state from what it had been. Or was it really always in the same state? Always underneath the smooth surface there was some black mud. There wasn't clear water down to the pebbles, down to the shells, lying on the bottom of the sea. There was something moving, something sluggish somewhere, something that had to be found, suppressed. ~ Agatha Christie

Do you mean to tell me, Superintendent, that this is one of those damned cases you get in detective stories where a man is killed in a locked room by some apparently supernatural agency. ~ Agatha Christie

If you've been snubbed, or ignored, or frustrated, and your life's pretty drab and empty, I suppose you get a sense of power from stabbing in the dark at people who are happy and enjoying themselves. ~ Agatha Christie

Conversations are always dangerous, if you have something to hide. ~ Agatha Christie

Poison has a certain appeal ... It has not the crudeness of the revolver bullet or the blunt weapon. ~ Agatha Christie

Although everyone knows death comes in the end, you have this stupid mind which keeps on saying, 'But I won't die today . . .' right up to the moment of death! ~ Agatha Christie

I suggest to you that, although you may have endeavored to gloss over the fact to yourself, you did deliberately set about taking your husband from your friend. I suggest that you felt strongly attracted to him at once. But I suggest that there was a moment when you hesitated, when you realized that there was a choice–that you could refrain or go on. I suggest that the initiative rested with you–not with Monsieur Doyle. … You had everything, Madame, that life can offer. Your friend's life was bound up in one person. You knew that, but, though you hesitated, you did not hold your hand. You stretched it out and, like the rich man in the Bible, you took the poor man's one ewe lamb. ~ Agatha Christie

Hence King's Messengers and all that. In medieval days you gave a fellow a signet ring as a sort of open sesame. 'The King's Ring! Pass, my lord!' And usually it was the other fellow who had stolen it. I always wonder why some bright lad never hit on the expedient of copying the ring - making a dozen or so, and selling them at a hundred ducats apiece. They seem to have had no initiative in the Middle Ages. ~ Agatha Christie

... go down to the country, take a house, get interested in local politics, in local scandal, in village gossip. Take an inquisitive and violent interest in your neighbours. ~ Agatha Christie

How often is tittle tattle, as you call it, true! And I think if, as I say, they really examined the facts they would find that it was true nine times out of ten! That's really just what makes people so annoyed about it. ~ Agatha Christie

One does see so much evil in a village,' murmured Miss Marple in an explanatory voice. ~ Agatha Christie

How often have I not heard a perfectly intelligent female says, in the tone of one clinching an argument, 'Edgar says
' And all the time you are perfectly aware that Edgar is a perfect fool. ~ Agatha Christie

It was very like a dream. Like all dreamers, however, I could not let my dream alone. We poor humans are so anxious not to miss anything. ~ Agatha Christie

Spider's Web * The Unexpected Guest ~ Agatha Christie

At the small table, sitting very upright, was one of the ugliest old ladies he had ever seen. It was an ugliness of distinction - it fascinated rather than repelled. ~ Agatha Christie

Can one build an honest house on dishonest foundation? I do not know. But I do know that I want to try. (Edward Ferrier) ~ Agatha Christie

Fortunately words, ingeniously used, will serve to mask the ugliness of naked facts. ~ Agatha Christie

I know enough of life to know that you can never judge any case on its outside merits. ~ Agatha Christie

I believe at least in one of the chief tenets of the Christian faith
contentment with a lowly place. I am a doctor and I know that ambition
the desire to succeed
to have power
leads to most ills of the human soul. If the desire is realized it leads to arrogance, violence and final satiety; and if it is denied
ah! if it is denied
let all the asylums for the insane rise up and give their testimony! The are filled with human beings who were unable to face being mediocre, insignificant, ineffective and who therefore created for themselves ways of escape from reality so to be shut off from life itself forever. ~ Agatha Christie

Sometimes one sees things clearly years afterwards than one could possibly at the time. ~ Agatha Christie

But seriously Poirot, what a hobby! Compare that to
" his voice sank to an appreciative purr
"an easy chair in front of a wood fire in a long low room lined with books
must be a long room
not a square one. Books all round one. A glass of port
and a book open in your hand. Time rolls back as you read. ~ Agatha Christie

The truth, however ugly in itself, is always curious and beautiful to seekers after it. ~ Agatha Christie

Will you be so kind, Mademoiselle, as to write down your permanent address on this piece of paper?' She complied. Her writing was clear and legible. ~ Agatha Christie

But I don't doubt it will be essentially the same type of crime. The details may be different, but the essentials underlying them will be the same. It's odd, but a criminal gives himself away every time by that. Man is an unoriginal animal," said Hercule Poirot.
"Women," said Mrs. Oliver, " are capable of infinite variation. I should never commit the same type of murder twice running."
"Don't you ever write the same plot twice running?" asked Battle. ~ Agatha Christie

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 ~ Agatha Christie

for a minute her good-natured blue eyes were hard and sharp; she was the female fighting for existence - "that ~ Agatha Christie

No sign, so far, of anything sinister - but I live in hope. ~ Agatha Christie

And anyway, a man has no business to let himself be made a fool of by a woman. It's his own look out if he does. ~ Agatha Christie

After all, perhaps dirt isn't really so unhealthy as one is brought up to believe. ~ Agatha Christie

When the fact doesn't meet the theory then let go the theory. ~ Agatha Christie

Don't go," said Cedric. "Murder has made you practically one of the family. ~ Agatha Christie

One gets infected, it is true, by the style of a work that one has been reading. ~ Agatha Christie

I've no patience with modern humanitarian scruples about capital punishment. ~ Agatha Christie

A diary is useful for recording the idiosyncrasies of other people - but not one's own. ~ Agatha Christie

More murders have been committed for respectability than one would believe possible! The ~ Agatha Christie

Present­ly, when the strain re­laxed, Blore said: 'There are habits and habits! Mr. Lom­bard takes a re­volver to out-​of-​the-way places, right enough, and a primus and a sleep­ing-​bag and a sup­ply of bug pow­der, no doubt! But habit wouldn't make him bring the whole out­fit down here? It's on­ly in books peo­ple car­ry re­volvers around as a matter of course.' Dr. Arm­strong shook his head per­plexed­ly. ~ Agatha Christie