“There's a saying by some great writer or other that no man is a hero to his valet. Perhaps everyone ought to have a valet.”

“The amount of missing girls I've had to trace and their family and their friends always say the same thing. 'She was a bright and affectionate disposition and had no men friends'. That's never true. It's unnatural. Girls ought to have men friends. If not, then there's something wrong about them....”

“Poirot's eyes opened. "That is great ferocity," he said."It is a woman," said the chef de train, speaking for the first time. "Depend upon it, it was a woman. Only a woman would stab like that."Dr. Constantine screwed up his face thoughtfully. "She must have been a very strong woman," he said. "It is not my desire to speak technically-that is only confusing; but I can assure you that two of the blows were delivered with such forces as to drive them through hard belts of bone and muscle.""It was clearly not a scientific crime," said Poirot."It was most unscientific," returned Dr. Constantine."The blows seem to have been delivered haphazard and at random. Some have glanced off, doing hardly any damage. It is as though somebody had shut his eyes and then in a frenzy struck blindly again and again.""C'est une femme," said the chef de train again. "Women are like that. When they are enraged they have great strength." He nodded so sagely that everyone suspected a personal experience of his own.”

“I have always noticed that these artists and writers are very unbalanced”

“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.”

“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.”

“Take this Hercules -this hero! Hero, indeed! What was he but a large muscular creature of low intelligence and criminal tendencies!”