Agatha Christie

"‘If one approaches a problem with order and method there should be no difficulty in solving it — none whatever,’ said Pirot severely."

"There is no such thing as muddle — obscurity, yes — but muddle can exist only in a disorderly brain."

"Ah, but it is incredible how often things force one to do the thing one would like to do."

"Poirot twinkled at her gently."

"One has occasionally to pocket one's pride and readjust one's ideas."

"I have, perhaps, too professional a point of view where deaths are concerned. They are divided, in my mind, into two classes — deaths which are my affair and deaths which are not my affair — and though the latter class is infinitely more numerous — nevertheless whenever I come in contact with death I am like the dog who lifts his head and sniffs the scent."

"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."

""This is M. Hercule Poirot," I said. Megan Barnard gave him a quick, appraising glance. "I've heard of you," she said. "You're the fashionable private sleuth, aren't you?". "Not a pretty description - but it suffices," said Poirot."

"Hercule Poirot once taught me in a very dramatic manner that romance can be a by-product of crime."

"I don't pretend to be an author or to know anything about writing. I'm doing this simply because Dr Reilly asked me to, and somehow when Dr Reilly asks you to do a thing you don't like to refuse."

"That was the worst of Dr Reilly. You never knew whether he was joking or not. He always said things in the same slow melancholy way — but half the time there was a twinkle underneath it."

"Believe me, nurse, the difficulty of beginning will be nothing to the difficulty of knowing how to stop. At least that's the way it is with me when I have to make a speech. Someone's got to catch hold of my coat-tails and pull me down by main force."

"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!"

"I don't think I shall ever forget my first sight of Hercule Poirot. Of course, I got used to him later on, but to begin with it was a shock, and I think everyone else must have felt the same! I don't know what I'd imagined — something like Sherlock Holmes — [...] Of course, I knew he was a foreigner, but I hadn't expected him to be quite as foreign as he was, if you know what I mean. When you saw him you just wanted to laugh! He was like something on the stage or at the pictures. [...] He looked like a hairdresser in a comic play!"

"I felt that the murderer was in the room. Sitting with us — listening. one of us"

"Oh, dear, it's quite true what Dr. Reilly said. How does one stop writing? If I could find a really good telling phrase... Like the one M. Poirot used. In the name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate... Something like that."

"“Darling,” she drawled, “won’t that be rather tiresome? If any misfortunes happen to my friends I always drop them at once! It sounds heartless, but it saves such a lot of trouble later!”"

"How true is the saying that man was forced to invent work in order to escape the strain of having to think."

"“There’s no reason why women shouldn’t behave like rational beings,” said Simon stolidly. Poirot said dryly: “Quite frequently they do. That is even more upsetting!”"

"But to succeed in life every detail should be arranged well beforehand."

"It was a very British and utterly unconvincing performance."

"“You do well. Method and order, they are everything,” replied Poirot."

"I'm used to that. It often seems to me that's all detective work is — wiping out your false starts and beginning again."

"“That’s all very well — they’re not educated, poor creatures.” “No, and a good thing too. Education has devitalised the white races. Look at America — goes in for an orgy of culture. Simply disgusting.”"

"Once I went professionally to an archaeological expedition--and I learnt something there. In the course of an excavation, when something comes up out of the ground, everything is cleared away very carefully all around it. You take away the loose earth, and you scrape here and there with a knife until finally your object is there, all alone, ready to be drawn and photographed with no extraneous matter confusing it. That is what I have been seeking to do--clear away the extraneous matter so that we can see the truth--the naked shining truth."

"“It’s so dreadfully easy — killing people… And you begin to feel that it doesn’t matter… That it’s only you that matters! It’s dangerous — that.”"

"And Mr. Burnaby said acutely: "Well, it doesn't seem to have done her much good, poor lass." But after a while they stopped talking about her and discussed instead who was going to win the Grand National. For, as Mr. Ferguson was saying at that minute in Luxor, it is not the past that matters but the future."

"Pilar sat squeezed up against the window and thought how very odd the English smelt."

"“Pilar — remember — nothing is so boring as devotion.”"

"“Yes, Mr. Lee.” Superintendent Sugden did not wast time on explanations. “What’s all this?”"

"The character of the victim has always something to do with his or her murder."

"He is like a cat. And all cats are thieves."

"“Yes. I like to see people get angry. I like it very much. But here in England they do not get angry like they do in Spain. In Spain they take out their knives and they curse and shout. In England they do nothing, just get very red in the face and shut up their mouths tight.”"

"“I agree with you. It is here a family affair. It is a poison that works in the blood — it is intimate — it is deep-seated. There is here, I think, hate and knowledge…”"

"The crime is now logical and reasonable."

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

"Is it coding — or code breaking? Is it like Deborah's job? Do be careful, Tommy, people go queer doing that and can't sleep and walk about all night groaning and repeating 978345286 or something like that and finally have nervous breakdowns and go into homes."

"‘I have often noticed that being a devoted wife saps the intellect,’ murmured Tommy."

"‘Truth of it is,’ said Commander Haydock, steering rather erratically round a one-way island and narrowly missing collision with a large van, ‘when the beggars are right, one remembers it, and when they’re wrong you forget it.’"

"Flattery, in Tuppence's opinion, should always be laid on with a trowel where a man is concerned."

"‘You’re frightfully BBC in your language this afternoon, Albert,’ said Tuppance, with some exasperation. Albert looked slightly taken aback and reverted to a more natural form of speech. ‘I was listening to a very interesting talk on pond life last night,’ he explained."

"Like most Englishmen, he felt something strongly, and proceeded to muddle around until he had, somehow or other, cleared up the mess."

"I could think of nothing more insufferable than members of one's own gang dropping in full of sympathy and their own affairs."

"Freckles are so earnest and Scottish."

"Quite absurd, because Caleb has absolutely no taste for fornication. He never has had. So lucky, being a clergyman."

"Work, Mr. Burton. There's nothing like work, for men and women. The one unforgivable sin is idleness."

"“Jerry had an expensive public school education, so he doesn’t recognize Latin when he hears it,” said Joanna"

"To commit a successful murder must be very much like bringing off a conjuring trick."

"“It makes her rather alarming,” I said. “Sincerity has that effect,” said Miss Marple."

"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."