All Quotes

"My right are denied by those least qualified/Trading profit for pride/But it's OK"

"The crime is now logical and reasonable."

"There is always something about conscious tact that is very irritating."

"How convenient if you could ring up Harrods and say ‘Please send along two good murderers, will you?’"

"But when investing money, keep, I beg of you, Hastings, strictly to the conservative."

"They are so busy knocking that they do not notice that the door is open!"

"What beats me — it always does — is how a man can be so clever and yet be such a perfect fool."

"I asked for me. I was not there either. (I had never done that before.) It made me sad to hear that."

"Waking up is such a peculiar and extraordinary process that I'm surprised we are able to manage it successfully so many times while we are still half asleep."

"A woman for duty, A boy for pleasure, But a melon for ecstasy."

"There are two kinds of sex, classical and baroque. Classical sex is romantic, profound, serious, emotional, moral, mysterious, spontaneous, abandoned, focused on a particular person, and stereotypically feminine. Baroque sex is pop, playful, funny, experimental, conscious, deliberate, amoral, anonymous, focused on sensation for sensation's sake, and stereotypically masculine. The classical mentality taken to an extreme is sentimental and finally puritanical; the baroque mentality taken to an extreme is pornographic and finally obscene. Ideally, a sexual relation ought to create a satisfying tension between the two modes (a baroque idea, particularly if the tension is ironic) or else blend them so well that the distinction disappears (a classical aspiration)."

"The problem is that sex is the most dangerous way of trying to achieve personal growth, because the life force has mixed it so liberally with a string sense of "magic", which, in the attempt at possession turns out to be an illusion. The attempt to possess a woman through an act of sex is as frustrating as trying to possess the scent of a rose by cooking and eating it."

"You never fuck the same woman twice."

"Love is what makes sex more than masturbation. If there is no love even if you are really with a partner you masturbate with a partner."

"Something did happen to me somewhere that robbed me of confidence and courage and left me with a fear of discovery and change and a positive dread of everything unknown that may occur."

"I think that maybe in every company today there is always at least one person who is going crazy slowly."

"It's a real problem to decide whether it's more boring to do something boring than to pass along everything boring that comes in to somebody else and then have nothing to do at all."

"...if you asked any one of them if he would choose to spend the rest of his life working for the company, he would give you a resounding No!, regardless of what inducements were offered. I was that high once. If you asked me that same question today, I would also give you a resounding No! and add: "I think I'd rather die now." But I am making no plans to leave. I have the feeling now that there is no place left for me to go."

"Because Andy Kagle is good to me and doesn't scare me any longer, I despise him a little bit too."

"Everything passes. (That's what makes it endurable.)"

"Yesterday, I helped a blind man across the street and was surprised that I did not feel revolted when I took his arm."

"Sundays are deadly. Spare time is ruinous."

"I don't know what else one can do with a hole in one except talk about it."

"I want to keep my dreams, even bad ones, because without them, I might have nothing all night long."

"Sometimes when I'm asleep, I try to wake up and can't. Sleep has me in its grip, and that is my dream."

"I think I'm in terrible trouble. I think I've committed a crime. The victims have always been children."

"I want my little boy back too. I don't want to lose him. I do."

"No one understands that carrying on bravely was the easiest thing to do."

"But better wet and smelly, for my taste, than dry and perfumed. I hate those artificial, candy-store scents. I want to embrace human flesh with musky, natural odors, not a bar of soap."

"I have given them life instead of death, freedom instead of the cords of superstition, beauty and truth instead of corruption and exploitation. The old bad days are over for them, the Light of the Aton has risen, and they can dwell in peace and harmony freed from the shadow of fear and oppression."

"Oh dear, I never realized what a terrible lot of explaining one has to do in a murder!"

"I specialize in murders of quiet, domestic interest."

"The intense interest aroused in the public by what was known at the time as “The Styles Case” has now somewhat subsided. Nevertheless, in view of the world-wide notoriety which attended it, I have been asked, both by my friend Poirot and the family themselves, to write an account of the whole story. This, we trust, will effectually silence the sensational rumours which still persist."

"The fellow is an absolute outsider, anyone can see that. He's got a great black beard, and wears patent leather boots in all weathers!"

"“Ah!” Poirot shook his forefinger so fiercely at me that I quailed before it. “Beware! Peril to the detective who says: ‘It is so small — it does not matter. It will not agree. I will forget it.’ That way lies confusion! Everything matters.”"

"Blood tells — always remember that — blood tells."

"Ah, my friend, one may live in a big house and yet have no comfort."

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

"Everything must be taken into account. If the fact will not fit the theory — let the theory go."

"“Tcha! Tcha!” cried Poirot irritably. “You argue like a child.”"

"Now there is no murder without a motive."

"Yes, he is intelligent. But we must be more intelligent. We must be so intelligent that he does not suspect us of being intelligent at all."

"Two is enough for a secret."

"See you, one should not ask for outside proof — no, reason should be enough. But the flesh is weak, it is consolation to find that one is on the right track."

"“This affair must all be unravelled from within.” He tapped his forehead. “These little grey cells. It is ‘up to them’ — as you say over here.”"

"Every murderer is probably somebody’s old friend."

"For Poirot, uttering a hoarse and inarticulate cry, again annihilated his masterpiece of cards and putting his hands over his eyes swayed backwards and forwards, apparently suffering the keenest agony. “Good heavens Poirot!” I cried. “What is the matter? Are you taken ill?” “No, no,” he gasped. “It is — it is — that I have an idea!”"

"I am not keeping back facts. Every fact that I know is in your possession. You can draw your own deductions from them."

"I did not deceive you, mon ami. At most, I permitted you to deceive yourself."

"The happiness of one man and one woman is the greatest thing in all the world."