Matilda Agatha Trunchbull Quotes

Oh, my dear friend, it is impossible not to give oneself away - unless one never opens one's mouth! Speech is the deadliest of revealers. ~ 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

Ah, but life is like that! It does not permit you to arrange and order it as you will. It will not permit you to escape emotion, to live by the intellect and by reason! You cannot say, 'I will feel so much and no more.' Life, Mr. Welman, whatever else it is, is not reasonable. [Hercule Poirot] ~ Agatha Christie

Yes, it was dangerous, but we are not put into this world, Mr. Burton, to avoid danger when an important fellow creature's life is at stake. You understand me? ~ Agatha Christie

To put it quite crudely ... the poor don't really know how the rich live, and the rich don't know how the poor live, and to find out is really enchanting to both of them. ~ Agatha Christie

Yes, it is as you say. You now behold a detective- a great detective, I may say- in the act of detecting! ~ Agatha Christie

People will quite often do anything for money. - Jane Marple ~ Agatha Christie

I've become a killer of the Lord. It's the Lord's will that I should kill you. So that makes it all right. You do see that, don't you? You see, it makes it all right. ~ Agatha Christie

That is the word of reality - need. ~ Agatha Christie

You mean you live down here?' Matilda asked.
'I do', Miss Honey replied, but she said no more.
Matilda had never once stopped to think about where Miss Honey might be living. She had always regarded her purely as a teacher, a person who turned up out of nowhere and taught at school and then went away again. ~ Roald Dahl

Doctors, I find, have a very materialistic outlook. The spiritual seems to be strangely hidden from them. They pin their faith on Science - but what I say is... what is Science - what can it do?"
There seemed, to Hercule Poirot, to be no answer to the question other than a meticulous and painstaking description embracing Pasteur, Lister, Humphrey Davy's safety lamp - the convenience of electricity in the home and several hundred other kindred items. But that, naturally, was not the answer Mrs Lionel Cloade wanted. ~ Agatha Christie

This hunting of the fox, you need the dogs, no?'
'Hounds,' I corrected gently. 'Yes, of course.'
'But yet,' Poirot wagged his finger at me. 'You did not descend from your horse and run along the ground smelling with your nose and uttering loud Ow Ows? ~ Agatha Christie

But speaking of Tennyson, have you read Maud?" "Once, long ago." "It's got some points about it." He quoted softly: "'Faultily faultless, icily regular, splendidly null. ~ Agatha Christie

You've a pretty good nerve," said Ratchett. "Will twenty thousand dollars tempt you?"
It will not."
If you're holding out for more, you won't get it. I know what a thing's worth to me."
I, also M. Ratchett."
What's wrong with my proposition?"
Poirot rose. "If you will forgive me for being personal - I do not like your face, M. Ratchett," he said. ~ Agatha Christie

Every man should have aunts. They illustrate the triumph of guess work over logic. ~ Agatha Christie

I always feel that young doctors are only too anxious too experiment. After they've whipped out all our teeth, and administered quantities of very peculiar glands, and removed bits of our insides, they then confess that nothing can be done for us. I really prefer the old-fashioned remedy of big black bottles of medicine. After all, one can always pour those down the sink. ~ Agatha Christie

Liking is more important than loving. It lasts. I want what is between us to last, Luke. I don't want us just to love each other and marry and get tired of each other and then want to marry some one else."
"Oh! my dear Love, I know. You want reality. So do I. What's between us will last for ever because it's founded on reality. ~ Agatha Christie

You're suggesting the mysterious X. Where do we look for him?'

Poirot said:

'Obviously in a close circle. There were five people, were there not, whocould have been concerned?'

'Five? Let me see. There was the old duffer who messed about with his herb brewing. A dangerous hobby-but an amiable creature. Vague sort of person. Don't see him as X. There was the girl-she might have polished off Caroline, but certainly not Amyas. Then there was the stockbroker-Crale's best friend. That's popular in detective stories, but I don't believe in it in real life. There's no one else-oh yes, the kid sister, but one doesn't seriously consider her. That's four.'

Hercule Poirot said:

'You forget the governess.'

'Yes, that's true. Wretched people, governesses, one never does remember them. I do recall her dimly though. Middle-aged, plain, competent. I suppose a psychologist would say that she had a guilty passion for Crale and therefore killed him. The repressed spinster! It's no good-I just don't believe it. As far as my dim remembrance goes she wasn't the neurotic type.'

'It is a long time ago.'

'Fifteen or sixteen years, I suppose. Yes, quite that. You can't expect my memories of the case to be very acute. ~ Agatha Christie

Nothing, I believe, is so full of life under the microscope as a drop of water from a stagnant pool. ~ Agatha Christie

Agatha was a connoisseur of headaches, and was relieved at the transitory nature of this one. ~ Phil Foglio

Then, who is Matilda?' I asked.
Toby tilted his cup and poked at the slush with his straw. 'I suppose Matilda's the girl who felt like home. ~ Carol Rifka Brunt

In fact,' said Poirot, 'she stabbed him in the dark, not realising that he was dead already, but somehow deduced that he had a watch in his pyjama pocket, took it out, put back the hands blindly and gave it the requisite dent. ~ Agatha Christie

I do not argue with obstinate men. I act in spite of them. ~ Agatha Christie

It is completely unimportant. That is why it is so interesting. ~ Agatha Christie

He'd stay if Talon wanted him to, if Talon asked. All Talon had to do was ask ~ Agatha Bird

As a matter of fact I don't care two pins about accuracy. Who is accurate? Nobody nowadays. If a reporter writes that a beautiful girl of twenty-two dies by turning on the gas after looking out over the sea and kissing her favourite Labrador, Bob, goodbye, does anybody make a fuss because the girl was twenty-six, the room faced inland, and the dog was a Sealyham terrier called Bonnie? If a journalist can do that sort of thing I don't see that it matters if I mix up police ranks and say a revolver when I mean an automatic and a dictograph when I mean a phonograph, and use a poison that just allows you to gasp one dying sentence and no more. What really matters is plenty of bodies! If the thing's getting a little dull, some more blood cheers it up. Somebody is going to tell something – and then they're killed first! That always goes down well. It comes in all my books – camouflaged different ways of course. And people like untraceable poisons, and idiotic police inspectors and girls tied up in cellars with sewer gas or water pouring in (such a troublesome way of killing anyone really) and a hero who can dispose of anything from three to seven villains singlehanded. ~ Agatha Christie

He laughs best who laughs at the end. ~ Agatha Christie

An open mind lets ideas out, as well as in" -Agatha Swanburne ~ Maryrose Wood

But then, how do you know?"
"Because I am Hercule Poirot I do not need to be told. ~ Agatha Christie

Trains are relentless things, aren't they, Monsieur Poirot? People are murdered and die, but they go on just the same. I am talking nonsense, but you know what I mean."
"Yes, yes, I know. Life is like a train, Mademoiselle. It goes on. And it is a good thing that that is so."
"Why?"
"Because the train gets to its journey's end at last, and there is a proverb about that in your language, Mademoiselle."
"'Journey's end in lovers meeting.'" Lenox laughed. "That is not going to be true for me."
"Yes
yes, it is true. You are young, younger than you yourself know. Trust the train, Mademoiselle, for it is le bon Dieu who drives it."
The whistle of the engine came again.
"Trust the train, Mademoiselle," murmured Poirot again. "And trust Hercule Poirot. He knows. ~ Agatha Christie

They found he'd had a lethal dose of something that only a doctor could pronounce properly. As far as I remember it sounds vaguely like di-flor, hexagonal-ethylcarbenzol. That's not the right name. But that's roughly what it sounds like. ~ Agatha Christie

Faces are tricky unless you can connect up when and where you'd seen them. ~ Agatha Christie

In every profession and walk of life there is someone who is vulnerablle to temptation. (Mr. Barnes) ~ Agatha Christie

the elephant can remember. ~ Agatha Christie

Edward turned to Miss Marple. "It's like this, you see. As Uncle Mathew grew older, he got more and more suspicious. He didn't trust anybody." "Very wise of him," said Miss Marple. "The depravity of human nature is unbelievable. ~ Agatha Christie

Child's evidence is always the best evidence there is. I'd rely on it every time. No good in court, of course. Children can't stand being asked direct questions. They mumble or else look idiotic and say they don't know. They're at their best when they're showing off. ~ Agatha Christie

Fey ... a Scotch word ... It means the kind of exalted happiness that comes before disaster. You know
it's too good to be true. ~ 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

Good strong hair,' he was fond of saying, 'means there's a good strong brain underneath.' 'Like Shakespeare,' Matilda had once said to him. 'Like who?' 'Shakespeare, Daddy.' 'Was he brainy?' 'Very, Daddy.' 'He had masses of hair, did he?' 'He was bald, Daddy. ~ Roald Dahl

All around us are people, of all classes, of all nationalities, of all ages. For three days these people, these strangers to one another, are brought together. They sleep and eat under one roof, they cannot get away from each other. At the end of three days they part, they go their several ways, never, perhaps, to see each other again. ~ Agatha Christie

Your idea of a woman is someone who gets on a chair and shrieks if she sees a mouse. That's all prehistoric. ~ Agatha Christie

Nature repeats herself more than one would imagine. The sea has infinitely more variety. ~ Agatha Christie

Does the real thing ever have the perfection of a stage performance? ~ Agatha Christie

Agatha grimaced. The last thing they needed was this world perishing while they were still in it. ~ Soman Chainani

Poirot did not enter into a controversy. He had already learnt that every single individual had a different version of the theme "What did we fight the war for? ~ Agatha Christie

In some ways I really think that men are beasts. ~ Agatha Christie

Eager watch was
kept for the first appearance of the legendary creature in the village, and it may be said that as far as
appearances went Basil Blake was all that could be asked for. Little by little, however, the real facts
leaked out. Basil Blake was not a film star, not even a film actor. He was a very junior person, rejoicing
in the position of about fifteenth in the list of those responsible for set decorations at Lenville Studios,
headquarters of British New Era Films. The village maidens lost interest and the ruling class of censorious
spinsters took exception to Basil Blake's way of life. ~ Agatha Christie

As much as I adore Agatha Christie - and I think people make this claim about murder mysteries in general - it's often a very conservative mode of storytelling. Usually it's the greedy, climbing, new-money slimeball who wants to take from the aristocracy. ~ Christopher Bollen

The scheme had been, if I remember, that after lunch I should go off and caddy for Honoria on a shopping tour down Regent Street; but when she got up and started collecting me and the rest of her things, Aunt Agatha stopped her. ~ P.G. Wodehouse