Agatha Christie

I believe, Messieurs, in loyalty---to one's friends and one's family and one's caste.

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.

But what really happens after you are dead - that is what I want to know?I cannot tell you Renisenb. You should ask a priest these questions.He would just give me the usual answers. I want to know.We shall none of us know until we are dead ourselves.

Don't you know, you idiot, that that is what every fool of a woman says about her child?Miss Bulstrode's thoughts.

It is so unkind--' 'Perhaps. But sometimes a compulsion comes over one to speak the truth!

The innocent must not suffer.

Bad habit, lunch. A banana and a water biscuit is all any sane healthy man should need in the middle of the day.

I've always jumped on sentiment__nd here I am being more sentimental than anybody. What idiots girls are! I've always thought so. I suppose I shall sleep with his photograph under my pillow, and dream about him all night. It's dreadful to feel you've been false to your principles.

In moments of great stress, the mind focuses itself upon some quite unimportant matter which is remembered long afterwards with the utmost fidelity, driven in, as it were, by the mental stress of the moment. It may be some quite irrelevant detail, like the pattern of a wallpaper, but it will never be forgotten.

An appreciative listener is always stimulating.

To rush into explanations is always a sign of weakness.

For, once there's a death, one doesn't like to think there's been harsh words spoken and no chance of taking them back.

Sloppy crying had never helped anyone yet.

To cry at will is not an easy accomplishment.

For somewhere," said Poirot to himself, indulging in an absolute riot of mixed metaphors, "there is in the hay a needle, and among the sleeping dogs there is one on whom I shall put my foot, and by shooting the arrows into the air, one will come down and hit a glass house!

I always feel that young doctors are only too anxious too experiment. After they've whipped out all our teeth, and administered quantities of very peculiar glands, and removed bits of our insides, they then confess that nothing can be done for us. I really prefer the old-fashioned remedy of big black bottles of medicine. After all, one can always pour those down the sink.

She's very selfish. Not exactly self-centered, but totally indifferent to everyone and everything. Don't you agree?' 'I don't think that's possible,' said Mr Satterthwaite, slowly. 'I mean everyone's interest must go somewhere.

You know, Emily was a selfish old woman in her way. She was very generous, but she always wanted a return. She never let people forget what she had done for them - and, that way she missed love.