Agatha Christie Quotes

377 Sourced Quotes

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

Agatha Christie
In old days the public didn't really mind much about accuracy, but nowadays readers take it upon themselves to write to authors on every possible occasion, pointing out flaws.

Agatha Christie
Poirot said placidly, One does not, you know, employ merely the muscles. I do not need to bend and measure the footprints and pick up the cigarette ends and examine the bent blades of grass. It is enough for me to sit back in my chair and think. It is this – he tapped his egg-shaped head – this, that functions!

Agatha Christie
See you, one should not ask for outside proof—no, reason should be enough. But the flesh is weak, it is consolation to find that one is on the right track.

Agatha Christie
Do you always travel first-class, Mr. Hardman?
Yes, sir. The firm pays my travelling expenses.
He winked.

Agatha Christie
'If one approaches a problem with order and method there should be no difficulty in solving it — none whatever,' said Pirot severely.

Agatha Christie
The best time for planning a book is while you're doing the dishes.

Agatha Christie
'Truth of it is,' said Commander Haydock, steering rather erratically round a one-way island and narrowly missing collision with a large van, 'when the beggars are right, one remembers it, and when they're wrong you forget it.'

Agatha Christie
Without interest (hers not the type to wonder why!) but with perfect efficiently, Miss Lemon had fulfilled her task.

Agatha Christie
Speech... is an invention of man's to prevent him from thinking.

Agatha Christie
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.

Agatha Christie
Evil never goes unpunished, Monsieur. But the punishment is sometimes secret.

Agatha Christie
Bad temper is its own safety valve. He who can bark does not bite.

Agatha Christie
It was 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.

Agatha Christie
I have, perhaps, too professional a point of view where deaths are concerned. They are divided, in my mind, into two classes — deaths which are my affair and deaths which are not my affair — and though the latter class is infinitely more numerous — nevertheless whenever I come in contact with death I am like the dog who lifts his head and sniffs the scent.

Agatha Christie
Everything has got its right size. When it is its right size and well run it's the tops.

Agatha Christie
You agree — I'm sure you agree, that beauty is the only thing worth living for.

Agatha Christie
A dog, said Mr. Baldock, in his lecture-room style, which was capable of rousing almost anybody to violent irritation, has an extraordinary power of bolstering up the human ego.

Agatha Christie
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.

Agatha Christie
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. A beastly thing, compromise, but it steals upon you as you near middle age. It's stealing upon me now. To get the woman I want I'd — I'd even take up regular work.

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

Agatha Christie
Every man should have aunts. They illustrate the triumph of guesswork over logic.

Agatha Christie
Mon ami, if you wish to catch a rabbit you put a ferret into the hole, and if the rabbit is there he runs. That is all I have done.

Agatha Christie
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 speaking

Agatha Christie
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.

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

Agatha Christie
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 are writing, and aren't writing particularly well.

Agatha Christie
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.

Agatha Christie
Me, I am convinced it is the truth, said M. Bouc, becoming more and more enamoured of his theory.

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

Agatha Christie