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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.

-Agatha Christie

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The Popular Idea That

Agatha Christie

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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.

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Mother And Daughter

More From Agatha Christie

I Always Think Loyalty's Such A Tiresome Virtue.

It's Astonishing In This World How Things Don't Turn Out At All The Way You Expect Them To.

I've Always Noticed That If You Speak The Truth In A Rather Silly Way Nobody Believes You.

The Lure Of The Past Came Up To Grab Me. To See A Dagger Slowly Appearing, With Its Gold Glint, Through The Sand Was Romantic. The Carefulness Of Lifting Pots And Objects From The Soil Filled Me With A Longing To Be An Archaeologist Myself.

I'm Going To Marry Him. And If He Thinks He Can Get Divorced And Married Every Two Or Three Years In The Approved Hollywood Fashion, Well, He Never Made A Bigger Mistake In His Life. He's Going To Marry And Stick To Me.

Never Tell All You Know—not Even To The Person You Know Best.

It Is My Experience That No One, In The Course Of Conversation, Can Fail To Give Themselves Away Sooner Or Later. Everyone Has An Irresistible Urge To Talk About Themselves.

An Ugly Voice Repels Me Where An Ugly Face Would Not.

Of Course I Despise Money When I Haven't Got Any. It's The Only Dignified Thing To Do.

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.

But I Know Human Nature, My Friend, And I Tell You That, Suddenly Confronted With The Possibility Of Being Tried For Murder, The Most Innocent Person Will Lose His Head And Do The Most Absurd Things.

Innocent Person

A Mother's Love For Her Child Is Like Nothing Else In The World.

To Count - Really And Truly To Count - A Woman Must Have Goodness Or Brains.

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.

In My End Is My Beginning - That's What People Are Always Saying. But What Does It Mean?

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.

One Never Quite Allows For The Moron In Our Midst.

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]

I'm Sorry, But I Do Hate This Differentiation Between The Sexes. The Modern Girl Has A Thoroughly Businesslike Attitude To Life! That Sort Of Thing. It's Not A Bit True! Some Girls Are Businesslike And Some Aren't. Some Men Are Sentimental And Muddle-headed, Others Are Clear-headed And Logical. There Are Just Different Types Of Brains.

Nobody Believes In Magicians Any More, Nobody Believes That Anyone Can Come Along And Wave A Wand And Turn You Into A Frog. But If You Read In The Paper That By Injecting Certain Glands Scientists Can Alter Your Vital Tissues And You'll Develop Froglike Characteristics, Well, Everybody Would Believe That.

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.

Inspirational Birthday

When A Man Is Really In Love He Can't Help Looking Like A Sheep.

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.

There Is No Question Of Defence. I Have Always Acted In Accordance With The Dictates Of My Conscience. I Have Nothing With Which To Reproach Myself.

No Sign, So Far, Of Anything Sinister—but I Live In Hope.

The Things Young Women Read Nowadays And Profess To Enjoy Positively Frighten Me.

I've Always Believed In Writing Without A Collaborator, Because Where Two People Are Writing The Same Book, Each Believes He Gets All The Worry And Only Half The Royalties.

The Steamship Whose Machinery Is Broken May Be Brought Into Port And Made Fast To The Dock. She Is Safe, But Not Sound. Repairs May Last A Long Time. Christ Designs To Make Us Both Safe And Sound. Justification Gives The First - Safety; Sanctification Gives Us The Second - Soundness.

Those Who Never Think Of Money Need A Great Deal Of It.

Nothing, I Believe, Is So Full Of Life Under The Microscope As A Drop Of Water From A Stagnant Pool.

And If You Cast Down An Idol, There's Nothing Left.

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

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?

It Had Come About Exactly In The Way Things Happened In Books.

Now I Am Old-fashioned. A Woman, I Consider, Should Be Womanly. I Have No Patience With The Modern Neurotic Girl Who Jazzes From Morning To Night, Smokes Like A Chimney, And Uses Language Which Would Make A Billingsgate Fishwoman Blush!

Elephants Can Remember, But We Are Human Beings And Mercifully Human Beings Can Forget.

Tea! Bless Ordinary Everyday Afternoon Tea!

There Is Nothing More Thrilling In This World, I Think, Than Having A Child That Is Yours, And Yet Is Mysteriously A Stranger.

The Past Is The Father Of The Present.

It's Like All Those Quiet People, When They Do Lose Their Tempers They Lose Them With A Vengeance.

I Didn't Want To Work. It Was As Simple As That. I Distrusted Work, Disliked It. I Thought It Was A Very Bad Thing That The Human Race Had Unfortunately Invented For Itself.

I Always Take Abroad With Me One Really Good Soft Pillow--to Me It Makes All The Difference Between Comfort And Misery.

To All Those Who Lead Monotonous Lives In The Hope That They May Experience At Second Hand The Delights And Dangers Of Adventure. [author's Dedication]

Monotonous Life

Words Are Such Uncertain Things, They So Often Sound Well But Mean The Opposite Of What One Thinks They Do.

To Keep Something Wild Is Far More Difficult Than To Preserve It.

You Have A Tendency, Hastings, To Prefer The Least Likely. That, No Doubt, Is From Reading Too Many Detective Stories.

I Don't Go In For Being Sorry For People. For One Thing It's Insulting. One Is Only Sorry For People When They're Sorry For Themselves. Self-pity Is One Of The Biggest Stumbling Blocks In The World Today.

You Travel Life Has The Aspect Of A Dream. It Is Something Outside The Normal, Yet You Are In It. It Is Peopled With Characters You Have Never Seen Before And In All Probability Will Never See Again. It Brings Occasional Homesickness, And Loneliness, And Pangs Of Longing ... But You Are Like The Vikings Who Have Gone Into A World Of Adventure, And Home Is Not Home Until You Return.

Why Shouldn't I Hate Her? She Did The Worst Thing To Me That Anyone Can Do To Anyone Else. Let Them Believe That They're Loved And Wanted And Then Show Them That It's All A Sham.

In My Experience, People Who Go About Looking For Trouble Usually Find It.

My Remarks Are, As Always, Apt, Sound, And To The Point. (hercule Poirot)

I've A Theory That One Can Always Get Anything One Wants If One Will Pay The Price. And Do You Know What The Price Is, Nine Times Out Of Ten? Compromise.

Curious Things, Habits. People Themselves Never Knew They Had Them. [witness For The Prosecution, Also Published In The Hound Of Death And Other Stories.]

"look Here," I Said, "people Like To Collect Disasters."

There Is No Greater Mistake In Life Than Seeing Things Or Hearing Them At The Wrong Time.

Youth Is A Failing Only Too Easily Outgrown.

Very Unfortunately, She Had No Husband. She Had Never Had A Husband, And Therefore Did Not Kill A Husband.

Wonderful Things, Horses. Never Know What They Will Do, Or Won't Do.

Assumptions Are Dangerous Things.

Dangerous Things

A Woman Who Doesn't Lie Is A Woman Without Imagination And Without Sympathy.

As You Yourself Have Said, What Other Explanation Can There Be?' Poirot Stared Straight Ahead Of Him. 'that Is What I Ask Myself,' He Said. 'that Is What I Never Cease To Ask Myself.

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.

And, Of Course, Afterwards -- One Always Hears These Things Afterwards, So Much Better If One Heard Them Before -- We Found Out That Dozens Of Empty Brandy Bottles Were Taken Out Of The House Every Week!

Things Never Come When They Are Expected.

It Is The Brain, The Little Gray Cells On Which One Must Rely. One Must Seek The Truth Within--not Without." ~ Poirot

The Out-of-date Returns In Due Course As The Picturesque.

You Want Beauty,' Said Hercules Poirot. 'beauty At Any Price. For Me, It Is Truth. I Want Always Truth.

An Archaeologist Is The Best Husband A Woman Can Have. The Older She Gets The More Interested He Is In Her.

But Surely For Everything You Love You Have To Pay Some Price.

The Simplest Explanation Is Always The Most Likely.

Surfing Is Like That. You Are Either Vigorously Cursing Or Else You Are Idiotically Pleased With Yourself.

One Is Alone When The Last One Who Remembers Is Gone.

I Just Woke Up Feeling Happy This Morning. You Know Those Days When Everything In The World Seems Right.

For In The Long Run, Either Through A Lie, Or Through Truth, People Were Bound To Give Themselves Away.

There's Too Much Tendency To Attribute To God The Evils That Man Does Of His Own Free Will.

Real Evidence Is Usually Vague And Unsatisfactory. It Has To Be Examined---sifted. But Here The Whole Thing Is Cut And Dried. No, My Friend, This Evidence Has Been Very Cleverly Manufactured---so Cleverly That It Has Defeated Its Own Ends.

Many Homicidal Lunatics Are Very Quiet, Unassuming People. Delightful Fellows.

One Does See So Much Evil In A Village,' Murmured Miss Marple In An Explanatory Voice.

It Is The Quietest And Meekest People Who Are Often Capable Of The Most Sudden And Unexpected Violences For The Reason That When Their Control Does Snap, It Goes Entirely. (hercule Poirot)

I Have A Certain Experience Of The Way People Tell Lies.

Good Advice Is Always Certain To Be Ignored, But That's No Reason Not To Give It.

Mother And Daughter

I Would Like It To Be Said That I Was A Good Writer Of Detective And Thriller Stories.

The Urge To Write One's Autobiography, So I Have Been Told, Overtakes Everyone Sooner Or Later.

Sooner Or Later

Everyone Is A Potential Murderer-in Everyone There Arises From Time To Time Thewish To Kill-though Not The Will To Kill.

Doctors Can Do Almost Anything Nowadays, Can't They, Unless They Kill You While They're Trying To Cure You.

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.

Liking Is More Important Than Loving. It Lasts. I Want What Is Between Us To Last, Luke. I Don't Want Us Just To Love Each Other And Marry And Get Tired Of Each Other And Then Want To Marry Some One Else.

One Of The Luckiest Things That Can Happen To You In Life Is, I Think, To Have A Happy Childhood.

Who Are You? You Don't Belong To The Police?' 'i Am Better Than The Police,' Said Poirot. He Said It Without Conscious Arrogance. It Was, To Him, A Simple Statement Of Fact.

Fiction Is Founded On Truth....unless Things Did Happen,people Couldn't Think Of Them.

Do You Believe In The Value Of Truth, My Dear, Or Don’t You?” “of Course I Believe In The Truth,” Said Rhoda, Staring. “yes, You Say That, But Perhaps You Haven’t Thought About It. The Truth Hurts Sometimes – And Destroys One’s Illusions.” “i’d Rather Have It All The Same.” Said Rhoda. “so Would I. But I Don’t Know That We’re Wise.” Mrs. Oliver; Rhoda Dawes

Sometimes I Feel Sure He Is As Mad As A Hatter And Then, Just As He Is At His Maddest, I Find There Is A Method In His Madness.

If You Place Your Head In A Lion's Mouth, Then You Cannot Complain One Day If He Happens To Bite It Off.

If You Are To Be Hercule Poirot, You Must Think Of Everything.

Writers Are Diffident Creatures -- They Need Encouragement.

Need Encouragement

There's Nothing So Dangerous For Anyone Who Has Something To Hide As Conversation.

Where Large Sums Of Money Are Concerned, It Is Advisable To Trust Nobody.

I Admit," I Said, "that A Second Murder In A Book Often Cheers Things Up." - Hastings

There's No Agony Like [getting Started]. You Sit In A Room, Biting Pencils, Looking At A Typewriter, Walking About, Or Casting Yourself Down On A Sofa, Feeling You Want To Cry Your Head Off.

Where Do One's Fears Come From? Where Do They Shape Themselves? Where Do They Hide Before Coming Out Into The Open?

Downstairs In The Lounge, By The Third Pillar From The Left, There Sits An Old Lady With A Sweet, Placid, Spinsterish Face And A Mind That Has Plumbed The Depths Of Human Iniquity And Taken It All As In The Day's Work....where Crime Is Concerned, She's The Goods.

Then There Are Some Minor Points That Strike Me As Suggestive - For Instance, The Position Of Mrs. Hubbard's Sponge Bag, The Name Of Mrs. Armstrong's Mother, The Detective Methods Of Mr. Hardman, The Suggestion Of Mr. Macqueen That Ratchett Himself Destroyed The Charred Note We Found, Princess Dragomiroff's Christian Name, And A Grease Spot On A Hungarian Passport.

There Are Questions That You Don't Ask Because You're Afraid Of The Answers To Them.

Achievement Brings With It Its Own Anticlimax.

Difficulties Are Made To Be Overcome ~ Miss Felicity Lemon, Agatha Christie's Poirot: The Plymouth Express

I Have No Pity For Myself Either. So Let It Be Veronal. But I Wish Hercule Poirot Had Never Retired From Work And Come Here To Grow Vegetable Marrows.

I Specialize In Murders Of Quiet, Domestic Interest.

Murder Mysteries

It's Not A Man's Working Hours That Are Important--it's His Leisure Hours. That's The Mistake We All Make.

Everything Must Be Taken Into Account. If The Fact Will Not Fit The Theory---let The Theory Go.

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.

You Are The Patient One, Mademoiselle,' Said Poirot To Miss Debenham. She Shrugged Her Shoulders Slightly. 'what Else Can One Do?' You Are A Philosopher, Mademoiselle.' That Implies A Detached Attitude. I Think My Attitude Is More Selfish. I Have Learned To Save Myself Useless Emotion.

The Best Time To Plan A Book Is While You're Doing The Dishes.

One Of The Saddest Things In Life, Is The Things One Remembers.

If One Sticks Too Rigidly To One's Principles, One Would Hardly See Anybody.

I Know Nothing About Pistols And Revolvers, Which Is Why I Usually Kill Off My Characters With A Blunt Instrument Or Better With Poisons. Besides, Poisons Are Neat And Clean And Really Exciting... I Do Not Think I Could Look A Really Ghastly Mangled Body In The Face. It Is The Means That I Am Interested In. I Do Not Usually Describe The End, Which Is Often A Corpse.

There Are More Important Things Than Finding The Murderer. And Justice Is A Fine Word, But It Is Sometimes Difficult To Say Exactly What One Means By It. In My Opinion, The Important Thing Is To Clear The Innocent. - Hercule Poirot

I Am All That There Is Of The Most Real.

One Does What One Can, Not What One Cannot.

Inspirational Life

If Anyone Is Really Determined To Lend You A Book, You Never Can Get Out Of It!

Everybody Said, "follow Your Heart". I Did, It Got Broken

Things Go Entirely Differently From The Way You Planned Them.

If You've Had A Happy Childhood, Nobody Can Take That Away From You.

Happy Childhood

There Are Doubtless Certain Unworldly People Who Are Indifferent To Money. I Myself Have Never Met One.

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.

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.

... There Are Many To Whom Money Has No Personal Appeal, But Who Can Be Tempted By The Power It Confers.

One Is Left With The Horrible Feeling Now That War Settles Nothing; That To Win A War Is As Disastrous As To Lose One.

Juliet Singles Out Romeo. Desdemona Claims Othello. They Have No Doubts, The Young, No Fear, No Pride.

The Young People Think The Old People Are Fools -- But The Old People Know The Young People Are Fools.

No Innocent Person Ever Has An Alibi.

Innocent Person

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.

Many Friends Have Said To Me, 'i Never Know When You Write Your Books, Because I've Never Seen You Writing, Or Even Seen You Go Away To Write.' I Must Behave Rather As Dogs Do When They Retire With A Bone; They Depart In A Secretive Manner And You Do Not See Them Again For An Odd Half Hour. They Return Self-consciously With Mud On Their Noses. I Do Much The Same.

Too Much Safety Is Abhorrent To The Nature Of A Human Being.

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.

Mr. Jesmond Made A Peculiar Noise Rather Like A Hen Who Has Decided To Lay An Egg And Then Thought Better Of It.

If We Seek To Keep The Past Alive, We End, I Think, By Distorting It.

Oh, I'm Not Afraid Of Death! What Have I Got To Live For After All? I Suppose You Believe It's Very Wrong To Kill A Person Who Has Injured You-even If They've Taken Away Everything You Had In The World?

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.

Coffee In England Always Tastes Like A Chemistry Experiment.

I Married An Archeologist Because The Older I Grow, The More He Appreciates Me.

Bitterness Leads Nowhere. It Turns Back On Itself. It Is The Eternal Cul-de-sac.

That Is Why Most Great Love Stories Are Tragedies.

Marriage Is An Extraordinary Thing - And I Doubt If Any Outsider - Even A Child Of The Marriage - Has The Right To Judge.

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.

Someone You Love

The Science Of Tomorrow Is The Supernatural Of Today.

Everything Has Got Its Right Size. When It Is Its Right Size And Well Run It's The Tops.

The Impossible Could Not Have Happened, Therefore The Impossible Must Be Possible In Spite Of Appearances.

Any Woman Can Fool A Man If She Wants To And If He's In Love With Her.

To Win A War Is As Disasterous As To Lose One.

Very Few Of Us Are What We Seem.

We Are The Same People As We Were At Three, Six, Ten Or Twenty Years Old. More Noticeably So, Perhaps, At Six Or Seven, Because We Were Not Pretending So Much Then.

I Am Not One To Rely Upon The Expert Procedure. It Is The Psychology I Seek, Not The Fingerprint Or The Cigarette Ash.

That Was What, Ultimately, War Did To You. It Was Not The Physical Dangers--the Mines At Sea, The Bombs From The Air, The Crisp Ping Of A Rifle Bullet As You Drove Over A Desert Track. No, It Was The Spiritual Danger Of Learning How Much Easier Life Was If You Ceased To Think.

I'm Not Often Bored,' I Assured Her. "life's Not Long Enough For That.

The Detective's Highest Talent Lay In The Gentle Art Of Seeking Favours Under The Guise Of Conferring Them!

Any Medical Man Who Predicts Exactly When A Patient Will Die, Or Exactly How Long He Will Live, Is Bound To Make A Fool Of Himself. The Human Factor Is Always Incalculable. The Weak Have Often Unexpected Powers Of Resistance, The Strong Sometimes Succumb.

If You Love, You Will Suffer, And If You Do Not Love, You Do Not Know The Meaning Of A Christian Life.

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.

The Contemporary Historian Never Writes Such A True History As The Historian Of A Later Generation.

Be Sure Thy Sin Will Find Thee Out.

There Are Many Things That Are Unbelievable. Especially Before Breakfast, Is It Not? That Is What One Of Your Classics Says. Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast.

Impossible Things

The Tragedy Of Life Is That People Do Not Change.

I, Myself, Was Always Recognized . . . As The “slow One” In The Family. It Was Quite True, And I Knew It And Accepted It. Writing And Spelling Were Always Terribly Difficult For Me. My Letters Were Without Originality. I Was . . . An Extraordinarily Bad Speller And Have Remained So Until This Day.

It Is Curious - But You Cannot Make A Revolution Without Honest Men. ... Every Revolution Has Had Its Honest Men. They Are Soon Disposed Of Afterwards.

Love Is Not Everything ... It Is Only When We Are Young That We Think It Is.

One Place Is Very Like Another.

Does The Real Thing Ever Have The Perfection Of A Stage Performance?

Stage Performance

Exactly! It Is Absurd - Improbable - It Cannot Be. So I Myself Have Said. And Yet, My Friend, There It Is! One Cannot Escape From The Facts.

Until One Looks Back On One's Own Past One Fails To Realise What An Extraordinary View Of The World A Child Has.

Vous Eprouves Trop D'emotion, Hastings, It Affects Your Hands And Your Wits. Is That A Way To Fold A Coat? And Regard What You Have Done To My Pyjamas. If The Hairwash Breaks What Will Befall Them?' 'good Heavens, Poirot,' I Cried, 'this Is A Matter Of Life And Death. What Does It Matter What Happens To Our Clothes?' 'you Have No Sense Of Proportion Hastings. We Cannot Catch A Train Earlier Than The Time That It Leaves, And To Ruin One's Clothes Will Not Be The Least Helpful In Preventing A Murder.

Bad Temper Is Its Own Safety Valve. He Who Can Bark Does Not Bite.

Ideas Are Like Everything Else. They've Got To Be Marketed.

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.

Is There Ever Any Particular Spot Where One Can Put One's Finger And Say, "it All Began That Day, At Such A Time And Such A Place, With Such An Incident?

Self-preservation's A Man's First Duty. And Natives Don't Mind Dying, You Know. They Don't Feel About It As Europeans Do.

How Tedious Is Retirement! You Cannot Imagine To Yourself The Monotony With Which Day Comes After Day.

It Is Ridiculous To Set A Detective Story In New York City. New York City Is Itself A Detective Story.

... The Belief In A Superstratum Of Human Beings ... Is The Most Evil Of All Beliefs. For When You Say, 'i Am Not As Other Men' -- You Have Lost The Two Most Valuable Qualities We Have Ever Tried To Attain: -- Humility And Brotherhood.

One Of Us In This Very Room Is In Fact The Murderer.

These Little Grey Cells. It Is Up To Them.

She Didn't Give George Any Too Easy A Time When She Was Alive. She Was One Of Those Semi-invalids – I Believe She Had Really Something Wrong With Her, But Whatever It Was She Played It For All It Was Worth. She Was Capricious, Exacting, Unreasonable. She Complained From Morning To Night. George Was Expected To Wait On Her, Hand And Foot And Everything He Did Was Always Wrong And He Got Cursed For It. Most Men, I'm Fully Convinced, Would Have Hit Her With A Hatchet Long Ago.

It's A Mystery To Me How Anyone Ever Gets Any Nourishment In This Place. They Must Eat Their Meals Standing Up By The Window So As To Be Sure Of Not Missing Anything.

An Appreciative Listener Is Always Stimulating.

Trains Are Wonderful.... To Travel By Train Is To See Nature And Human Beings, Towns And Churches And Rivers, In Fact, To See Life.

How Often Have I Not Heard A Perfectly Intelligent Female Says, In The Tone Of One Clinching An Argument, 'edgar Says -- ' And All The Time You Are Perfectly Aware That Edgar Is A Perfect Fool.

The Heart Of A Woman Who Loves Will Forgive Many Blows.

The Point Is That One's Got An Instinct To Live. One Doesn't Live Because One's Reason Assents To Living. People Who, As We Say, 'would Be Better Dead' Don't Want To Die! People Who Apparently Have Everything To Live For Just Let Themselves Fade Out Of Life Because They Haven't Got The Energy To Fight.

The Happy People Are Failures Because They Are On Such Good Terms With Themselves They Don't Give A Damn.

To Care Passionately For Another Human Creature Brings Always More Sorrow Than Joy; But At The Same Time, Elinor, One Would Not Be Without Experience. Anyone Who Has Never Really Loved Has Never Really Lived.

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.

I Really Cannot Understand The Point Of What You're Saying. Really,' Said Clotilde, Looking At Her. 'what A Very Extraordinary Person You Are. What Sort Of A Woman Are You? Why Are You Talking Like This? Who Are You?' Miss Marple Pulled Down The Mass Of Pink Wool That Encircled Her Head, A Pink Wool Scarf Of The Same Kind That She Had Once Worn In The West Indies. 'one Of My Names,' She Said, 'is Nemesis.' 'nemesis? And What Does That Mean?' 'i Think You Know,' Said Miss Marple. 'you Are A Very Well Educated Woman. Nemesis Is Long Delayed Sometimes, But It Comes In The End.

There Are Some People Who Don't Conform To The Signals. An Ordinary Well-regulated Locomotive Slows Down Or Pulls Up When It Sees The Red Light Hoisted Against It. Perhaps I Was Born Color Blind. When I See The Red Signal -- I Can't Help Forging Ahead. And In The End, You Know, That Spells Disaster.

And Yet," Said Poirot, "suppose An Accident-" "ah, No, My Friend-" "from Your Point Of View It Would Be Regrettable, I Agree. But Nevertheless Let Us Just For One Moment Suppose It. Then, Perhaps, All These Here Are Linked Together - By Death.

Beastly Things, Teeth. Give Us Trouble From The Cradle To The Grave.

Speech ... Is An Invention Of Man's To Prevent Him From Thinking.

The Truth, However Ugly In Itself, Is Always Curious And Beautiful To Seekers After It.

Every Man Should Have Aunts. They Illustrate The Triumph Of Guess Work Over Logic.

When The Fact Doesn't Meet The Theory Then Let Go The Theory.

There Is Too Much Tendency To Attribute To God The Evils That Man Does Of His Own Free Will. I Must Concede You The Devil. God Doesn't Really Need To Punish Us, Miss Barton. We're So Busy Punishing Ourselves.

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