Agatha christie quotes

The tragedy of life is that people do not change.

I learned ... that one can never go back, that one should not ever try to go back - that the essence of life is going forward. Life is really a one way street, isn't it?

There is no greater mistake in life than seeing things or hearing them at the wrong time.

Everything that has existed, lingers in the Eternity.

It is clear that the books owned the shop rather than the other way about. Everywhere they had run wild and taken possession of their habitat, breeding and multiplying, and clearly lacking any strong hand to keep them down.

Assumptions are dangerous things.

you cannot give to people what they are incapable of receiving.

There is nothing more thrilling in this world, I think, than having a child that is yours, and yet is mysteriously a stranger.

Our weapon is our knowledge. But remember, it may be a knowledge we may not know that we possess.

In my experience, people who go about looking for trouble usually find it.

Truth, however bitter, can be accepted, and woven into a design for living.

I like living. I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow, but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing.

Never tell all you know—not even to the person you know best.

To rush into explanations is always a sign of weakness.

Dogs are wise. They crawl away into a quiet corner and lick their wounds and do not rejoin the world until they are whole once more.

With method and logic one can accomplish anything.

The popular idea that a child forgets easily is not an accurate one. Many people go right through life in the grip of an idea which has been impressed on them in very tender years.

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

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

Of course I despise money when I haven't got any. It's the only dignified thing to do.

The human face is, after all, nothing more nor less than a mask.

Writing is a great comfort to people like me, who are unsure of themselves and have trouble expressing themselves properly.

The best time to plan a book is while you're doing the dishes.

It is deplorable...to remove all the romance - all the mystery!

If one sticks too rigidly to one's principles, one would hardly see anybody.

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.

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.

You want beauty,' said Hercules Poirot. 'Beauty at any price. For me, it is truth. I want always truth.

There are questions that you don't ask because you're afraid of the answers to them.

Very few of us are what we seem.

One never quite allows for the moron in our midst.

One of the saddest things in life, is the things one remembers.

To every problem, there is a most simple solution.

The human mind prefers to be spoon-fed with the thoughts of others, but deprived of such nourishment it will, reluctantly, begin to think for itself - and such thinking, remember, is original thinking and may have valuable results.

Any coincidencce is worth noticing. You can throw it away later if it is only a coincidence.

Things never come when they are expected.

Bitterness leads nowhere. It turns back on itself. It is the eternal cul-de-sac.

I'm afraid of death... Yes, but that doesn't stop death coming.

For in the long run, either through a lie, or through truth, people were bound to give themselves away.

When engaged in eating, the brain should be the servant of the stomach.

Poirot," I said. "I have been thinking." "An admirable exercise my friend. Continue it.

I can't imagine why everybody is always so keen for authors to talk about writing. I should have thought it was an author's business to write, not talk.

Courage is the resolution to face the unforeseen.

Never do anything yourself that others can do for you.

Until one looks back on one's own past one fails to realise what an extraordinary view of the world a child has.

I always think loyalty's such a tiresome virtue.

To win a war is as disasterous as to lose one.

I just woke up feeling happy this morning. You know those days when everything in the world seems right.

The saddest thing in life and the hardest to live through, is the knowledge that there is someone you love very much whom you cannot save from suffering.

Tea! Bless ordinary everyday afternoon tea!

The past is the father of the present.

One must accept the fact that we have only one companion in this world, a companion who accompanies us from the cradle to the grave - our own self. Get on good terms with that companion - learn to live with yourself.

In the midst of life, we are in death.

A weak man in a corner is more dangerous than a strong man.

You can only really get under anybody's skin if you are married to them.

It's what's in *yourself* that makes you happy or unhappy.

I married an archeologist because the older I grow, the more he appreciates me.

... nothing is so boring as devotion.

I've always noticed that if you speak the truth in a rather silly way nobody believes you.

I can think of nothing more soul destroying in life than to persist in trying to do a thing you want desperately to do well, and to know that you are at the best second rate.

Those who never think of money need a great deal of it.

No, my friend, I am not drunk. I have just been to the dentist, and need not return for another six months! Is it not the most beautiful thought? --Poirot

Time does not dispose of a question - it only presents it anew in a different guise.

I know there's a proverb which that says 'To err is human,' but a human error is nothing to what a computer can do if it tries.

The out-of-date returns in due course as the picturesque.

There's nothing so dangerous for anyone who has something to hide as conversation.

I'm not often bored,' I assured her. "Life's not long enough for that.

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

I do not argue with obstinate men. I act in spite of them.

Good advice is always certain to be ignored, but that's no reason not to give it.

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]

Don't think. That is the wrong way to bring anything back. Let it go. Sooner or later it will flash into your mind.

It's very inconvenient to be loved. Nearly everyone has found that out, sooner or later. The fewer people who love you the less you will have to suffer.

Be sure thy sin will find thee out.

Where large sums of money are concerned, it is advisable to trust nobody.

Many homicidal lunatics are very quiet, unassuming people. Delightful fellows.

An appreciative listener is always stimulating.

Nobody knows what another person is thinking. They may imagine they do, but they are nearly always wrong.

There's too much tendency to attribute to God the evils that man does of his own free will.

I'm sure you have a theme: the theme of your life. You can embellish it or desecrate it, but it's your theme, and as long as you follow it, you will experience harmony and peace of mind.

Never go back to a place where you have been happy. Until you do it remains alive for you. If you go back it will be destroyed.

I have enjoyed greatly the second blooming that comes when you finish the life of the emotions and of personal relations; and suddenly find - at the age of fifty, say - that a whole new life has opened before you, filled with things you can think about, study, or read about...It is as if a fresh sap of ideas and thoughts was rising in you.

What they need is a little immorality in their lives. Then they wouldn't be so busy looking for it in other people's.

If you love, you will suffer, and if you do not love, you do not know the meaning of a Christian life.

Too much mercy... often resulted in further crimes which were fatal to innocent victims who need not have been victims if justice had been put first and mercy second.

The impossible could not have happened, therefore the impossible must be possible in spite of appearances.

A mother's love for her child is like nothing else in the world. It knows no law, no pity, it dares all things and crushes down remorselessly all that stands in its path.

If you place your head in a lion's mouth, then you cannot complain one day if he happens to bite it off.

It is really a hard life. Men will not be nice to you if you are not good-looking, and women will not be nice to you if you are.

The happy people are failures because they are on such good terms with themselves they don't give a damn.

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

You don't realize what fine fighting material there is in age. ... You show me any one who's lived to over seventy and you show me a fighter - some one who's got the will to live.

It's not a man's working hours that are important--it's his leisure hours. That's the mistake we all make.

It often seems to me that's all detective work is, wiping out your false starts and beginning again." Yes, it is very true, that. And it is just what some people will not do. They conceive a certain theory, and everything has to fit into that theory. If one little fact will not fit it, they throw it aside. But it is always the facts that will not fit in that are significant.

The young people think the old people are fools -- but the old people know the young people are fools.

With thought, all problems can be resolved.

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.

There was a moment when I changed from an amateur to a professional. I assumed the burden of a profession, which is to write even when you don't want to, don't much like what you're writing, and aren't writing particularly well

There is no telling what a human character is. Until the test comes. To most of us the test comes early in life. A man is confronted quite soon with the necessity to stand on his own feet, to face dangers and difficulties and to take his own line of dealing with them. It may be the straight way, it may be the crooked way --- whichever it is, a man usually learns early just what he is made of.

Time is the best killer.

... there are many to whom money has no personal appeal, but who can be tempted by the power it confers.

Fear is incomplete knowledge.

The heart of a woman who loves will forgive many blows.

When the fact doesn't meet the theory then let go the theory.

Words are such uncertain things, they so often sound well but mean the opposite of what one thinks they do.

It is a curious thought, but it is only when you see people looking ridiculous that you realize just how much you love them.

An archaeologist is the best husband a woman can have. The older she gets the more interested he is in her.

Everyone is a potential murderer-in everyone there arises from time to time thewish to kill-though not the will to kill.

It's astonishing in this world how things don't turn out at all the way you expect them to.

Every murderer is probably somebody's old friend.

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

No innocent person ever has an alibi.

I don't think necessity is the mother of invention. Invention, in my opinion, arises directly from idleness, possibly also from laziness - to save oneself trouble.

Trains are wonderful.... To travel by train is to see nature and human beings, towns and churches and rivers, in fact, to see life.

Everybody said, "Follow your heart". I did, it got broken

I live now on borrowed time, waiting in the anteroom for the summons that will inevitably come. And then - I go on to the next thing, whatever it is. One doesn't, luckily, have to bother about that.

What good is money if it can't buy happiness?

But surely for everything you love you have to pay some price.

One is left with the horrible feeling now that war settles nothing; that to win a war is as disastrous as to lose one.

The truth, however ugly in itself, is always curious and beautiful to seekers after it.

Books are a habit-forming drug.

The first time you do a thing is always exciting.

One of the luckiest things that can happen to you in life is, I think, to have a happy childhood.

Any woman can fool a man if she wants to and if he's in love with her.

One doesn't recognize the really important moments in one's life until it's too late.