Agatha Christie

“I was wrong about that young man of yours. A man when he is making up to anybody can be cordial and gallant and full of little attentions and altogether charming. But when a man is really in love, he can't help looking like a sheep. Now, whenever that young man looked at you, he looked like a sheep. I take back all I said this morning. It is genuine.”

“Katherine Grey was born with the power of managing old ladies, dogs, and small boys, and she did it without any apparent sense of strain.”

“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.”

“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]”

“Youth is a failing only tooeasily outgrown.”

“They say all the world loves a lover—apply that saying to murder and you have an even more infallible truth.”

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

“One is alone when the last one who remembers is gone.”

“Poison has a certain appeal … It has not the crudeness of the revolver bullet or the blunt weapon.”

“One knows so little. When one knows more it is too late.”

“To keep something wild is far more difficult than to preserve it.”

“The past is the father of the present.”

“What can I say at seventy-five? "Thank God for my good life,and for all the love that has been given to me.”

“About Miss Debenham," he said rather awkwardly. "You can take it from me that she's all right. She's a pukka sahib."What," asked Dr. Constantine with interest, "does a pukka sahib mean?""It means," said Poirot, "that Miss Debenham's father and brothers were at the same kind of school as Colonel Arbuthnot was.""Oh!" said Dr. Constantine, disappointed. "Then it has nothing to do with the crime at all.""Exactly," said Poirot.”

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

“He was at the stage of a meal when one becomes philosophic.”

“The secret of getting ahead is getting started.”

“It is fundamentals that matter --- not the trappings. (Alice Cunningham)”

“My remarks are, as always, apt, sound, and to the point. (Hercule Poirot)”

“It is the sex angle that sells stories, that makes news. give people scandal allied to sex and it appeals far more than any mere political chicanery or fraud. (Hercule Poirot)”

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

“Your not reliable. You wouldn't be at all a comfortable sort of person to live with.”

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

“Life itself is an unsolved mystery", said the clergyman gravely.”

“They are never really dead, these super criminals”

“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.”

“You weren't quite accurate just now." "I? Not accurate?" Poirot sounded affronted.”

“Truth is seldom romantic.”

“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.”

“Courage is the resolution to face the unforeseen.”

“Alas," murmured Poirot to his mustaches, "that one can only eat three times a day ...”

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

“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.”

“I mean, what can you say about how you write your books? What I mean is, first you've got to think of something, and then when you've thought of it you've got to force yourself to sit down and write it. That's all." ~ Mrs. Oliver”

“People with a grudge against the world are always dangerous. They seem to think life owes them something. I've known many an invalid who has suffered worse and been cut off from life much more . . . and they've managed to lead happy contented lives. It's what's in yourself that makes you happy or unhappy.”

“What alchemy there was in human beings.”

“¿Quién puede afirmar que aquel niño no podría haberse convertido en un gran músico o en el descubridor de la vacuna contra el cáncer? O algo menos melodramático: podría convertirse en una persona feliz y normal...”

“People should be interested in books, not their authors.”

“A great many men are mad, and no one knows it. They do not know it themselves”

“Money, money, money! I think about money morning, noon and night! I dare say it's mercenary of me, but there it is”

“What are the years from twenty to forty? Fettered and bound by personal and emotional relationships. That's bound to be. That's living. But later there's a new stage. You can think, observe life, discover something about other people and the truth about yourself. Life becomes real--significant. You see it as a whole. Not just one scene--the scene you, as an actor, are playing. No man or woman is actually himself (or herself) till after forty-five. That's when individuality has a chance.”

“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.”

“Oh! Do not excite yourself. Shall I say that he interested me because he was trying to grow a mustache and as yet the result is poor." Poirot stroked his own magnificent mustache tenderly. "It is an art," he murmured, "the growing of the mustache! I have sympathy for all who attempt it.”

“Why didn't they ask the Evans?”

“Be sure thy sin will find thee out.”

“fiction is founded on truth... unless things did happen, people couldn't think of them.”

“And so could you know it if you would only use the brains the good God has given you. Sometimes I really am tempted to believe that by inadvertence, He passed you by.”

“So you think that the coco- mark well what I say, Hastings, the coco- contained strychnine?" "Of course! That salt on the tray, what else could it have been?" "It might have been salt." replied Poirot placidly.”

“But when a man is really in love he can't help looking like a sheep. Now whenever that young man looked he looked like a sheep I take back all is this morning. It is genuine.”

“Mas não tão inteligente quanto Hercule Poirot!”