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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.

-Agatha Christie

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There Is No Telling

Agatha Christie

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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.

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With Method And Logic One Can Accomplish Anything.

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

Money ... Is Always The Great Clue To What Is Happening In The World.

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

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

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

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 Think You're Begging The Question," Said Haydock, "and I Can See Looming Ahead One Of Those Terrible Exercises In Probability Where Six Men Have White Hats And Six Men Have Black Hats And You Have To Work It Out By Mathematics How Likely It Is That The Hats Will Get Mixed Up And In What Proportion. If You Start Thinking About Things Like That, You Would Go Round The Bend. Let Me Assure You Of That!"

Poirot," I Said. "i Have Been Thinking." "an Admirable Exercise My Friend. Continue It.

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

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

Assumptions Are Dangerous Things.

Dangerous Things

What They Need Is A Little Immorality In Their Lives. Then They Wouldn't Be So Busy Looking For It In Other People's.

Men Don't Understand How Their Mannerisms Can Get On Women's Nerves So That You Feel You Just Have To Snap.

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.

There Is No Fanatic Like A Religious Fanatic.

Religious Fanatics

... 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.

These Little Grey Cells. It Is Up To Them.

Prisoners At The Bar, Have You Anything To Say In Your Defence?

But No Artist, I Now Realize, Can Be Satisfied With Art Alone. There Is A Natural Craving For Recognition Which Cannot Be Gain-said.

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

They Tried To Be Too Clever---and That Was Their Undoing.

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

Women Can Accept The Fact That A Man Is A Rotter, A Swindler, A Drug Taker, A Confirmed Liar, And A General Swine, Without Batting An Eyelash, And Without Its Impairing Their Affection For The Brute In The Least. Women Are Wonderful Realists.

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.

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

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

Life Itself Is An Unsolved Mystery", Said The Clergyman Gravely.

Unsolved Mysteries

Your Not Reliable. You Wouldn't Be At All A Comfortable Sort Of Person To Live With.

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

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.

That Is Why Most Great Love Stories Are Tragedies.

Authors Were Shy, Unsociable Creatures, Atoning For Their Lack Of Social Aptitude By Inventing Their Own Companions And Conversations.

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

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

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

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.

I Don't Know. I Don't Know At All. And That's What's Frightening The Life Out Of Me. To Have No Idea.

You Can Only Really Get Under Anybody's Skin If You Are Married To Them.

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.

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

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.

Best Of An Island Is Once You Get There - You Can't Go Any Farther...you've Come To The End Of Things.

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

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.

... Obsessions Are Always Dangerous.

Sensationalism Dies Quickly, Fear Is Long-lived.

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.

I've Got An Uncle Myself. Nobody Should Be Held Responsible For Their Uncles. Nature's Little Throwbacks - That's How I Look At It.

Lie Is More Worth Living, More Full Of Interest When You Are Likely To Lose It. It Shouldn't Be, Perhaps, But It Is. When You're Young And Strong And Healthy, And Life Stretches Ahead Of You, Living Isn't Really Important At All. It's Young People Who Commit Suicide Easily, Out Of Despair From Love, Sometimes From Sheer Anxiety And Worry. But Old People Know How Valuable Life Is And How Interesting. - Jane Marple

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.

One Knows So Little. When One Knows More It Is Too Late.

One Little Indian Boy Left All Alone; He Went And Hanged Himself And Then There Were None.

There Speaks The Passion And The Rebellion That Go With Red Hair. My Second Wife Had Red Hair. She Was A Beautiful Woman, And She Loved Me. Strange, Is It Not? I Have Always Admired Red-haired Women. Your Hair Is Very Beautiful. There Are Other Things I Like About You. Your Spirit, Your Courage; The Fact That You Have A Mind Of Your Own. ~mr. Aristides

Crime Is Terribly Revealing. Try And Vary Your Methods As You Will, Your Tastes, Your Habits, Your Attitude Of Mind, And Your Soul Is Revealed By Your Actions.

Don't Think. That Is The Wrong Way To Bring Anything Back. Let It Go. Sooner Or Later It Will Flash Into Your Mind.

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.

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

Coffee In England Always Tastes Like A Chemistry Experiment.

Things Never Come When They Are Expected.

The Tragedy Of Life Is That People Do Not Change.

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

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

Sooner Or Later

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.

People Should Be Interested In Books, Not Their Authors.

Three Months Seems To Me Quite A Reasonable Time To Complete A Book, If One Can Get Right Down To It.

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.

I Never Can Stand Seeing People Pleased With Themselves,” Said Joanna. “it Arouses All My Worst Instincts.

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

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.

Everybody Always Knows Something," Said Adam, "even If It's Something They Don't Know They Know.

I Have Often Had Occasion To Notice How, Where A Direct Question Would Fail To Elicit A Response, A False Assumption Brings Instant Information In The Form Of A Contradiction.

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

I Have Always Been So Sure - Too Sure... But Now I Am Very Humble And I Say Like A Little Child: "i Do Not Know..."

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?

People Who Can Be Very Good Can Be Very Bad Too.

A Lot Of Trouble Has Been Caused By Memoirs. Indiscreet Revelations, That Sort Of Thing. People Who Have Been Close As An Oyster All Their Lives Seem Positively To Relish Causing Trouble When They Themselves Shall Be Comfortably Dead.

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.

I Did Not Deceive You, Mon Ami. At Most, I Permitted You To Deceive Yourself.

Lawyers Never Go To Law, Do They? They Know Better.

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.

God Bless My Soul, Woman, The More Personal You Are The Better! This Is A Story Of Human Beings - Not Dummies! Be Personal - Be Prejudiced - Be Catty - Be Anything You Please! Write The Thing Your Own Way. We Can Always Prune Out The Bits That Are Libellous Afterwards!

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.

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

Once I Went Professionally To An Archaeological Expedition-and I Learnt Something There. In The Course Of An Excavation, When Something Comes Up Out Of The Ground, Everything Is Cleared Away Very Carefully All Around It. You Take Away The Loose Earth, And You Scrape Here And There With A Knife Until Finally Your Object Is There, All Alone, Ready To Be Drawn And Photographed With No Extraneous Matter Confusing It. That Is What I Have Been Seeking To Do-clear Away The Extraneous Matter So That We Can See The Truth-the Naked Shining Truth.

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

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!

It's What's In *yourself* That Makes You Happy Or Unhappy.

I Specialize In Murders Of Quiet, Domestic Interest.

Murder Mysteries

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

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

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.

Nurses - Nurses, You'm All The Same. Full Of Cheerfulness Over Other People's Troubles.

Evil Is Not Any Superhuman, But It Is Human.

You Cannot Give To People What They Are Incapable Of Receiving.

Poirot: Do Not Allow Hate Into Your Heart, For It Will Make A Home There. Jackie: If Love Cannot Live There, Hate Works Just As Well.

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.

Writing Is A Great Comfort To People Like Me, Who Are Unsure Of Themselves And Have Trouble Expressing Themselves Properly.

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

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

... Evil Was, Perhaps, Necessarily Always More Impressive Than Good.

Courage Is The Resolution To Face The Unforeseen.

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.

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

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.

Hercule Poirot: I Am An Imbecile. I See Only Half Of The Picture. Miss Lemon: I Don't Even See That.

The First Time You Do A Thing Is Always Exciting.

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.

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

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

Curious Things, Habits. People Themselves Never Knew They Had Them.

There Is Nothing So Dangerous For Anyone Who Has Something To Hide As Conversation!... A Human Being, Hastings, Cannot Resist Theopportunity To Reveal Himself And Express His Personality Which Conversation Gives Him. Every Time He Will Give Himself Away.

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.

Achievement Brings With It Its Own Anticlimax.

Truth, However Bitter, Can Be Accepted, And Woven Into A Design For Living.

I Always Think Loyalty's Such A Tiresome Virtue.

I've Got A Stomach Now As Well As A Behind. And I Mean - Well, You Can't Pull It In Both Ways, Can You? ... I've Made It A Rule To Pull In My Stomach And Let My Behind Look After Itself.

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

Books Are A Habit-forming Drug.

There Hung About Her The Restrained Energy Of A Whiplash.

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.

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

Sitting Here With One's Knitting, One Just Sees The Facts. -"the Blood-stained Pavement

I Think, Myself, That One's Memories Represent Those Moments Which, Insignificant As They May Seem, Nevertheless Represent The Inner Self And Oneself As Most Really Oneself.

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

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

You Gave Too Much Rein To Your Imagination. Imagination Is A Good Servant, And A Bad Master. The Simplest Explanation Is Always The Most Likely.

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

One Place Is Very Like Another.

When You Find That People Are Not Telling You The Truth---look Out!

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

That Is What I Mean. A Bath! The Receptacle Of Porcelain, One Turns The Taps And Fills It, One Gets In, One Gets Out And Ghoosh - Ghoosh - Ghoosh, The Water Goes Down The Waste Pipe!" "m. Poirot Are You Quite Mad?" "no, I Am Extremely Sane.

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!

You'll Be Glad Too, When The End Comes.

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.

The Past Is The Father Of The Present.

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

The Supernatural Is Only The Natural Of Which The Laws Are Not Yet Understood.

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

If I Were At Any Time To Set Out On A Career Of Deceit, It Would Be Of Miss Marple That I Should Be Afraid.

The Trouble With You And Me, Is That We Don't Live In The Real World. We Dream Of Fantastic Things That May Never Happen.

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

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.

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

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

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.

Be Sure Thy Sin Will Find Thee Out.

It Is Deplorable...to Remove All The Romance - All The Mystery!

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.

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

You Cannot Mix Up Sentiment And Reason.

Time Is The Best Killer.

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

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

It Is Completely Unimportant. That Is Why It Is So Interesting.

Words, Mademoiselle, Are Only The Outer Clothing Of Ideas.

When The Sea Goes Down, There Will Come From The Mainland Boats And Men. And They Will Find Ten Dead Bodies And An Unsolved Problem On Indian Island.

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.

You Agree - I'm Sure You Agree That Beauty Is The Only Thing Worth Living For.

One Must Make One's Own Mistakes

I'm Afraid Of Death... Yes, But That Doesn't Stop Death Coming.

Afraid Of Death

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.

Our Weapon Is Our Knowledge. But Remember, It May Be A Knowledge We May Not Know That We Possess.

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

I Like To Inquire Into Everything. Hercule Poirot Is A Good Dog. The Good Dog Follows The Scent, And If, Regrettably, There Is No Scent To Follow, He Noses Around - Seeking Always Something That Is Not Very Nice.

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.

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.

I Suppose It Is Because Nearly All Children Go To School Nowadays And Have Things Arranged For Them That They Seem So Forlornly Unable To Produce Their Own Ideas.

At The Small Table, Sitting Very Upright, Was One Of The Ugliest Old Ladies He Had Ever Seen. It Was An Ugliness Of Distinction - It Fascinated Rather Than Repelled.

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.

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?

The Truth Often Does Sound Unconvincing.

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)

She Was A Lucky Woman Who Had Established A Happy Knack Of Writing What Quite A Lot Of People Wanted To Read.

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.

Talk And Tea Is His Specialty," Said Giles. "he Has About Five Cups Of Tea A Day. But He Works Splendidly When We Are Looking.

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.

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.

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

Jealousy, You Know, Is Usually Not An Affair Of Causes. It Is Much More-how Shall I Say?-fundamental Than That. Based On The Knowledge That One's Love Is Not Returned. And So One Goes On Waiting, Watching, Expecting...that The Loved One Will Turn To Someone Else.

Time Does Not Dispose Of A Question - It Only Presents It Anew In A Different Guise.

He Was Very Much A Man Of Moods, Possibly Owing To What Is Styled The Artistic Temperment. I Have Never Seen, Myself, Why The Possession Of Artistic Ability Should Be Supposed To Excuse A Man From A Decent Exercise Of Self-control.

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

If Only-if Only, Hastings, You Would Part Your Hair In The Middle Instead Of At The Side! What A Difference It Would Make To The Symmetry Of Your Appearance. And Your Moustache. If You Must Have A Moustache, Let It Be A Real Moustache-a Thing Of Beauty Such As Mine.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

What An Absurdity To Go And Bury Oneself In South America, Where They Are Always Having Revolutions.

With Thought, All Problems Can Be Resolved.

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.

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.

It Is A Curious Thought, But It Is Only When You See People Looking Ridiculous That You Realize Just How Much You Love Them.

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

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

Unless You Are Good At Guessing, It Is Not Much Use Being A Detective.

Plots Come To Me At Such Odd Moments, When I Am Walking Along The Street, Or Examining A Hat Shop… Suddenly A Splendid Idea Comes Into My Head.

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