Agatha Christie Quotes

Agatha Christie presents clever, investigative snippets on truth and writing that feel like a gentle puzzle for curious minds.

50 quotes

1. Understand this, I mean to arrive at the truth. The truth, however ugly in itself, is always curious and beautiful to seekers after it.

2. 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.

3. An archaeologist is the best husband any woman can have: the older she gets, the more interested he is in her.

4. Oh dear, I never realized what a terrible lot of explaining one has to do in a murder!

5. I specialize in murders of quiet, domestic interest.

6. It is ridiculous to set a detective story in New York City. New York City is itself a detective story.

7. I have a certain experience of the way people tell lies.

8. The intense interest aroused in the public by what was known at the time as 'The Styles Case' has now somewhat subsided. Nevertheless, in view of the world-wide notoriety which attended it, I have been asked, both by my friend Poirot and the family themselves, to write an account of the whole story. This, we trust, will effectually silence the sensational rumours which still persist.

9. Every murderer is probably somebody's old friend.

10. I am not keeping back facts. Every fact that I know is in your possession. You can draw your own deductions from them.

11. 'This affair must all be unravelled from within.' He tapped his forehead. 'These little grey cells. It is 'up to them' - as you say over here.'

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

13. 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.

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

15. 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.

16. I don't pretend to be an author or to know anything about writing. I'm doing this simply because Dr Reilly asked me to, and somehow when Dr Reilly asks you to do a thing you don't like to refuse.

17. That was the worst of Dr Reilly. You never knew whether he was joking or not. He always said things in the same slow melancholy way - but half the time there was a twinkle underneath it.

18. Believe me, nurse, the difficulty of beginning will be nothing to the difficulty of knowing how to stop. At least that's the way it is with me when I have to make a speech. Someone's got to catch hold of my coat-tails and pull me down by main force.

19. 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!

20. I don't think I shall ever forget my first sight of Hercule Poirot. Of course, I got used to him later on, but to begin with it was a shock, and I think everyone else must have felt the same! I don't know what I'd imagined - something like Sherlock Holmes - [...] Of course, I knew he was a foreigner, but I hadn't expected him to be quite as foreign as he was, if you know what I mean. When you saw him you just wanted to laugh! He was like something on the stage or at the pictures. [...] He looked like a hairdresser in a comic play!

21. I must have a talk with you, David, and learn all the new ideas. As far as I can see, one must hate everybody but at the same time give them free medical attention and a lot of extra education, poor things! All those helpless little children herded into schoolhouses every day-and cod liver oil forced down babies' throats whether they like it or not-such nasty-smelling stuff.

22. I can imagine anything! That's the trouble with me. I can imagine things now - this minute. I could even make them sound all right, but of course none of them would be true.

23. It would be difficult Bland thought, to forget Hercule Poirot, and this not entirely for complimentary reasons.

24. Who is there who has not felt a sudden startled pang at reliving an old experience or feeling an old emotion?

25. This, Hastings, will be my last case. It will be, too, my most interesting case - and my most interesting criminal.

26. I have no more now to say. I do not know, Hastings, if what I have done is justified or not justified. No - I do not know. I do not believe that a man should take the law into his own hands... But on the other hand, I am the law! As a young man in the Belgian police force I shot down a desperate criminal who sat on a roof and fired at people below. In a state of emergency martial law is proclaimed.

27. 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...' ~ Hercule Poirot

28. 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.

29. 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.

30. In the midst of life, we are in death.

31. 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.

32. Very unfortunately, she had no husband. She had never had a husband, and therefore did not kill a husband.

33. 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.

34. 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.

35. if you ask me, nobody really likes people who are always doing their duty.

36. If you are to be Hercule Poirot, you must think of everything.

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

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

39. Achievement brings with it its own anticlimax.

40. The bereaved had never any doubt about their dear ones' wishes and those wishes usually squared with their own inclinations.

41. 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.

42. Prisoners at the bar, have you anything to say in your defence?

43. More children suffer from interference than from non-interference.

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

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

46. There is no detective in England equal to a spinster lady of uncertain age with plenty of time on her hands.

47. The rottenness comes from within.

48. Many years ago, when I was once saying sadly to Max it was a pity I couldn't have taken up archaeology when I was a girl, so as to be more knowledgeable on the subject, he said, 'Don't you realize that at this moment you know more about prehistoric pottery than any woman in England?'

49. 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?

50. 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.