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Agatha Christie

Agatha Christie Quotes

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Famous Agatha Christie Quotes

“Such nice people, the Hillingdons, though she's not really very easy to know, is she? I mean, she's always very pleasant and all that, but one never seems to get to know her better.' Miss Marple agreed thoughtfully. 'One never knows what she is thinking.' 'Perhaps that is just as well.' 'I beg your pardon?' 'Oh nothing really, only that I've always had the feeling that perhaps her thoughts might be rather disconcerting.”

“Do you remember these words: ‘What Lamp has Destiny to guide Her little Children stumbling in the Dark? “A Blind Understanding,” Heaven replied. ‘Geoffrey has that—a blind understanding. All children possess it. It is only as we grow older that we lose it, that we cast it away from us. Sometimes, when we are quite old, a faint gleam comes back to us, but the Lamp burns brightest in childhood.”

“After the dusk of the passage, the evening sunshine that was pouring into the room made my eyes blink. I took a step or two across the floor and then stopped dead. For a moment I could hardly take in the meaning of the scene before me. Colonel Protheroe was lying sprawled across my writing table in a horrible unnatural position. There was a pool of some dark fluid on the desk by his head, and it was slowly dripping on to the floor with a horrible drip, drip, drip. I pulled myself together and went across to him. His skin was cold to the touch. The hand that I raised fell back lifeless. The man was dead — shot through the head.”

“Suppose it's all a question of glandular secretion. Too much of one gland, too little of another — and you get your murderer, your thief, your habitual criminal. Clement, I believe the time will come when we'll be horrified to think of the long centuries in which we've indulged in what you may call moral reprobation, to think how we've punished people for disease — which they can't help, poor devils. You don't hang a man for having tuberculosis.”

“Death, mademoiselle, unfortunately creates a prejudice. A prejudice in favour of the deceased. I heard what you said just now to my friend Hastings. ‘A nice bright girl with no men friends.’ You said that in mockery of the newspapers. And it is very true—when a young girl is dead, that is the kind of thing that is said. She was bright. She was happy. She was sweet-tempered. She had not a care in the world. She had no undesirable acquaintances. There is a great charity always to the dead. Do you know what I should like this minute? I should like to find someone who knew Elizabeth Barnard and who does not know she is dead! Then, perhaps, I should hear what is useful to me—the truth.”

“In spite of all my aches and pains, and I've got plenty. Inside I go on feeling just a chit like Gina. Perhaps everyone does. The glass shows them how old they are and they just don't believe it. It seems only a few months ago that we were at Florence. Do you remember Fräulein Schweich and her boots?” The two elderly women laughed together at events that had happened nearly half a century ago.”

“He picked up a violin which lay on the table and drew the bow once or twice across the strings. Tuppence ground her teeth, and even the explorer blenched. The performer laid the instrument down again. ‘A few chords from Mosgovskensky,’ he murmured. As the visitor left the office, Tuppence grabbed the violin, and putting it in the cupboard turned the key in the lock. ‘If you must be Sherlock Holmes,’ she observed, ‘I’ll get you a nice little syringe and a bottle labelled cocaine, but for God’s sake leave that violin alone.”

“That, my friend, I do not tell.' 'Nonsense. Why not?' Poirot's eyes twinkled. 'Because, mon cher, you are the same old Hastings. You have still the speaking countenance. I do not wish, you see, that you should sit staring at X with your mouth hanging open, your face saying plainly: "This -- this that I am looking at -- is a murderer." ' 'You might give me credit for a little dissimulation at need.' 'When you try to dissimulate, it is worse. No, no, mon ami, we must be very incognito you and I. Then, when we pounce, we pounce.' -”

“Diez negritos se fueron a cenar; uno se asfixió y quedaron nueve. Nueve negritos estuvieron despiertos hasta muy tarde; uno se quedó dormido y entonces quedaron ocho. Ocho negritos viajaron por Devon; uno dijo que se quedaría allí y quedaron siete. Siete negritos cortaron leña; uno se cortó en dos y quedaron seis. Seis negritos jugaron con una colmena; una abeja picó a uno de ellos y quedaron cinco. Cinco negritos estudiaron Derecho; uno se hizo magistrado y quedaron cuatro. Cuatro negritos fueron al mar; un arenque rojo se tragó a uno y quedaron tres. Tres negritos pasearon por el zoo; un gran oso atacó a uno y quedaron dos. Dos negritos se sentaron al sol; uno de ellos se tostó y sólo quedó uno. Un negrito quedó sólo; se ahorcó y no quedó… ¡ninguno!”