Agatha Christie famous quotes

A mother's love for her child is like nothing else in the world. It knows no law, no pity, it dares all things and crushes down remorselessly all that stands in its path.
-- Agatha Christie

#Family #Crush #Mom

Dogs are wise. They crawl away into a quiet corner and lick their wounds and do not rejoin the world until they are whole once more.
-- Agatha Christie

#Wise #Wisdom #Dog

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

#Love #Funny #Birthday

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

#Love You #Literature #Pay

It is the quietest and meekest people who are often capable of the most sudden and unexpected violences for the reason that when their control does snap, it goes entirely. (Hercule Poirot)
-- Agatha Christie

#People #Violence #Doe

One is left with the horrible feeling now that war settles nothing; that to win a war is as disastrous as to lose one.
-- Agatha Christie

#Peace #War #Winning

Very few of us are what we seem.
-- Agatha Christie

#Literature

It is a curious thought, but it is only when you see people looking ridiculous that you realize just how much you love them.
-- Agatha Christie

#Love #Cute #Confused

I like living. I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow, but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing.
-- Agatha Christie

#Inspirational #Life #Happiness

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.
-- Agatha Christie

#Character #Individuality #Everyday

I suppose it is because nearly all children go to school nowadays and have things arranged for them that they seem so forlornly unable to produce their own ideas.
-- Agatha Christie

#Education #Children #Learning

Instinct is a marvelous thing. It can neither be explained nor ignored.
-- Agatha Christie

#Ignored #Instinct

You gave too much rein to your imagination. Imagination is a good servant, and a bad master. The simplest explanation is always the most likely.
-- Agatha Christie

#Imagination #Too Much #Elegance

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

#Tea #Cups #Said

I am not mad. I am eccentric perhaps--at least certain people say so; but as regards my profession. I am very much as one says, 'all there.
-- Agatha Christie

#People #Mad #Eccentric

It is clear that the books owned the shop rather than the other way about. Everywhere they had run wild and taken possession of their habitat, breeding and multiplying, and clearly lacking any strong hand to keep them down.
-- Agatha Christie

#Running #Strong #Book

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

#Eggs #Peculiar #Noise

It often seems to me that's all detective work is, wiping out your false starts and beginning again." Yes, it is very true, that. And it is just what some people will not do. They conceive a certain theory, and everything has to fit into that theory. If one little fact will not fit it, they throw it aside. But it is always the facts that will not fit in that are significant.
-- Agatha Christie

#People #Wiping Out #Detective Work

When the sea goes down, there will come from the mainland boats and men. And they will find ten dead bodies and an unsolved problem on Indian Island.
-- Agatha Christie

#Men #Islands #Sea

There is no telling what a human character is. Until the test comes. To most of us the test comes early in life. A man is confronted quite soon with the necessity to stand on his own feet, to face dangers and difficulties and to take his own line of dealing with them. It may be the straight way, it may be the crooked way --- whichever it is, a man usually learns early just what he is made of.
-- Agatha Christie

#Character #Men #Feet

An appreciative listener is always stimulating.
-- Agatha Christie

#Appreciative

Tea! Bless ordinary everyday afternoon tea!
-- Agatha Christie

#Tea #Everyday #Ordinary

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

#Happiness #Suffering #Atheism

I live now on borrowed time, waiting in the anteroom for the summons that will inevitably come. And then - I go on to the next thing, whatever it is. One doesn't, luckily, have to bother about that.
-- Agatha Christie

#Death #Waiting #Dying

To care passionately for another human creature brings always more sorrow than joy; but at the same time, Elinor, one would not be without experience. Anyone who has never really loved has never really lived..
-- Agatha Christie

#Joy #Sorrow #Care

I did not deceive you, mon ami. At most, I permitted you to deceive yourself.
-- Agatha Christie

#Deceiving

The impossible could not have happened, therefore the impossible must be possible in spite of appearances.
-- Agatha Christie

#Inspirational #Life #Impossible

I've always believed in writing without a collaborator, because where two people are writing the same book, each believes he gets all the worry and only half the royalties.
-- Agatha Christie

#Believe #Book #Memorable

In conversation, points arise! If a human being converses much, it is impossible for him to avoid the truth! (Hercule Poirot)
-- Agatha Christie

#Impossible #Arise #Conversation

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

#Principles #Literature #Sticks

Everything that has existed, lingers in the Eternity.
-- Agatha Christie

#Literature #Eternity

These little grey cells. It is up to them.
-- Agatha Christie

#Cells #Literature #Littles

Courage is the resolution to face the unforeseen.
-- Agatha Christie

#Faces #Resolution

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.
-- Agatha Christie

#Justice #Needs #Too Much

The popular idea that a child forgets easily is not an accurate one. Many people go right through life in the grip of an idea which has been impressed on them in very tender years.
-- Agatha Christie

#Children #Mother And Daughter #Years

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

#Children #Reading #Intuition

What good is money if it can't buy happiness?
-- Agatha Christie

#Wealth

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

#Order #Life Is Like #Doe

There is nothing more thrilling in this world, I think, than having a child that is yours, and yet is mysteriously a stranger.
-- Agatha Christie

#Children #Reality #Thinking

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

#Trust #Money #Memorable

Be sure thy sin will find thee out.
-- Agatha Christie

#Sin #Thee

Never do anything yourself that others can do for you.
-- Agatha Christie

#Memorable #Literature

I specialize in murders of quiet, domestic interest.
-- Agatha Christie

#Literature #Quiet #Murder

Crime is terribly revealing. Try and vary your methods as you will, your tastes, your habits, your attitude of mind, and your soul is revealed by your actions.
-- Agatha Christie

#Attitude #Soul #Mind

Coffee in England always tastes like a chemistry experiment.
-- Agatha Christie

#Coffee #Taste #England

Women observe subconsciously a thousand little details, without knowing they are doing so. Their subconscious mind adds these little things together - and they call the result intuition.
-- Agatha Christie

#Women #Knowing #Intuition

The human mind prefers to be spoon-fed with the thoughts of others, but deprived of such nourishment it will, reluctantly, begin to think for itself - and such thinking, remember, is original thinking and may have valuable results.
-- Agatha Christie

#Thinking #Mind #Spoons

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

#Philosophy #One Day #Complaining

I'm not often bored,' I assured her. "Life's not long enough for that.
-- Agatha Christie

#Long #Bored #Enough

The happy people are failures because they are on such good terms with themselves they don't give a damn.
-- Agatha Christie

#Winning #People #Giving

It is really a hard life. Men will not be nice to you if you are not good-looking, and women will not be nice to you if you are.
-- Agatha Christie

#Nice #Men #Hard Life

There is too much tendency to attribute to God the evils that man does of his own free will. I must concede you the Devil. God doesn't really need to punish us, Miss Barton. We're so busy punishing ourselves.
-- Agatha Christie

#Men #Evil #Missing

Fear is incomplete knowledge
-- Agatha Christie

#Incomplete

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

#Men #Arguing #Spite

When engaged in eating, the brain should be the servant of the stomach.
-- Agatha Christie

#Brain #Eating #Should

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

#Beautiful #Ugly #Curious

Words, madmoiselle, are only the outer clothing of ideas.
-- Agatha Christie

#Ideas #Clothings

I married an archeologist because the older I grow, the more he appreciates me.
-- Agatha Christie

#Appreciate #Age #Married

I just woke up feeling happy this morning. You know those days when everything in the world seems right.
-- Agatha Christie

#Morning #Feelings #World

To every problem, there is a most simple solution.
-- Agatha Christie

#Simple #Problem #Solutions

There was a moment when I changed from an amateur to a professional. I assumed the burden of a profession, which is to write even when you don't want to, don't much like what you're writing, and aren't writing particularly well
-- Agatha Christie

#Work #Writing #Commitment

I don't think necessity is the mother of invention. Invention, in my opinion, arises directly from idleness, possibly also from laziness - to save oneself trouble.
-- Agatha Christie

#Mother #Memorable #Thinking

It is ridiculous to set a detective story in New York City. New York City is itself a detective story.
-- Agatha Christie

#New York #Writing #Cities

The best time to plan a book is while you're doing the dishes.
-- Agatha Christie

#Time #Book #Memorable

The young people think the old people are fools -- but the old people know the young people are fools.
-- Agatha Christie

#Thinking #People #Fool

Any woman can fool a man if she wants to and if he's in love with her.
-- Agatha Christie

#Men #Want #Fool

Good advice is always certain to be ignored, but that's no reason not to give it.
-- Agatha Christie

#Inspirational #Christian #Mother And Daughter

One of the luckiest things that can happen to you in life is, I think, to have a happy childhood.
-- Agatha Christie

#Life #Thinking #Childhood

I have enjoyed greatly the second blooming... suddenly you find - at the age of 50, say - that a whole new life has opened before you.
-- Agatha Christie

#Age #New Life #Blooming

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.
-- Agatha Christie

#Giving #Personality #Conversation

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

#Writing #Letters #Originality

Vous eprouves trop d'emotion, Hastings, It affects your hands and your wits. Is that a way to fold a coat? And regard what you have done to my pyjamas. If the hairwash breaks what will befall them?' 'Good heavens, Poirot,' I cried, 'this is a matter of life and death. What does it matter what happens to our clothes?' 'You have no sense of proportion Hastings. We cannot catch a train earlier than the time that it leaves, and to ruin one's clothes will not be the least helpful in preventing a murder.
-- Agatha Christie

#Clothes #Hands #Life And Death

People who can be very good can be very bad too.
-- Agatha Christie

#People #Very Good

It is the brain, the little gray cells on which one must rely. One must seek the truth within--not without." ~ Poirot
-- Agatha Christie

#Cells #Brain #Littles

One is alone when the last one who remembers is gone.
-- Agatha Christie

#Gone #Lasts #Remember

I never can stand seeing people pleased with themselves,” said Joanna. “It arouses all my worst instincts.
-- Agatha Christie

#People #Instinct #Said

You don't realize what fine fighting material there is in age. ... You show me any one who's lived to over seventy and you show me a fighter - some one who's got the will to live.
-- Agatha Christie

#Fighting #Age #Fighter

It is odd how, when you have a secret belief of your own which you do not wish to acknowledge, the voicing of it by someone else will rouse you to a fury of denial.
-- Agatha Christie

#Secret #Wish #Denial

Now I am old-fashioned. A woman, I consider, should be womanly. I have no patience with the modern neurotic girl who jazzes from morning to night, smokes like a chimney, and uses language which would make a billingsgate fishwoman blush!
-- Agatha Christie

#Girl #Morning #Night

It's what's in *yourself* that makes you happy or unhappy.
-- Agatha Christie

#Unhappy #Make You Happy

Who are you? You don't belong to the police?' 'I am better than the police,' said Poirot. He said it without conscious arrogance. It was, to him, a simple statement of fact.
-- Agatha Christie

#Simple #Police #Arrogance

A weak man in a corner is more dangerous than a strong man. (Inspector Miller)
-- Agatha Christie

#Strong #Men #Weak

My remarks are, as always, apt, sound, and to the point. (Hercule Poirot)
-- Agatha Christie

#Sound #Hercule Poirot

Do you know my friend that each one of us is a dark mystery, a maze of conflicting passions and desire and aptitudes?
-- Agatha Christie

#Passion #Dark #Desire

Everyone likes talking about himself. - Hercule Poirot
-- Agatha Christie

#Talking #Likes #Hercule Poirot

In my end is my beginning - that's what people are always saying. But what does it mean?
-- Agatha Christie

#Mean #People #Doe

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

#Interesting #Unimportant

Best of an island is once you get there - you can't go any farther...you've come to the end of things...
-- Agatha Christie

#Islands #Ends

One must make one's own mistakes
-- Agatha Christie

#Mistake

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.
-- Agatha Christie

#Girl #Sex #Sorry

I've got an uncle myself. Nobody should be held responsible for their uncles. Nature's little throwbacks - that's how I look at it.
-- Agatha Christie

#Uncles #Aunt #Looks

The rottenness comes from within.
-- Agatha Christie

fiction is founded on truth....unless things did happen,people couldn't think of them.
-- Agatha Christie

#Thinking #People #Fiction

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

#Reading #Doubt #Stories

People should be interested in books, not their authors.
-- Agatha Christie

#Book #People #Should

I was thinking, that when my time comes, I should be sorry if the only plea I had to offer was that of justice. Because it might mean that only justice would be meted out to me.
-- Agatha Christie

#Sorry #Mean #Thinking

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

#Mean #Scotch #Fey

Your not reliable. You wouldn't be at all a comfortable sort of person to live with.
-- Agatha Christie

#Persons

You should employ your little grey cells
-- Agatha Christie

#Cells #Littles #Should

The things young women read nowadays and profess to enjoy positively frighten me.
-- Agatha Christie

#Young #Enjoy #Young Women