"A little difficult to know where you were with Elinor. She didn't reveal much of what she thought and felt about things. He liked that about her. He hated people who reeled off their thoughts and feelings to you, who took it for granted that you wanted to know all their mechanism. Reserve was always more interesting."

"Any woman can fool a man if she wants to and if he's in love with her."

"Un archeologo A il miglior marito che una donna possa avere: piA1 lei diventa vecchia, piA1 lui s'interessa a lei."

"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."

"The evidence of history is against you. The contemporary historian never writes such a true history as the historian of a later generation. It is a question of getting the true perspective, of seeing things in proportion."

"Speech, so a wise old Frenchman said to me once, is an invention of man's to prevent him from thinking. It is also an infallible means of discovering that which he wishes to hide."

"They're like children, really. Only children are far more logical which makes it difficult sometimes with them. But these people are illogical, they want to be reassured by your telling them what they want to believe. Then they're quite happy again for a bit."

"But when you say crazy, that describes very well what the general appearance may be to ordinary, everyday people."

"To every problem, there is a most simple solution."

"A man when he is making up to anybody can be cordial and gallant and full of little attentions and altogether charming. But when a man is really in love he can't help looking like a sheep."

"Take the Pyramids. Great blocks of useless masonry, put up to minister to the egoism of a despotic bloated king. Think of the sweated masses who toiled to build them and died doing it. It makes me sick to think of the suffering and torture they represent."Mrs. Allerton said cheerfully: "You'd rather have no Pyramids, no Parthenon, no beautiful tombs or temples-just the solid satisfaction of knowing that people got three meals a day and died in their beds."The young man directed his scowl in her direction. "I think human beings matter more than stones."

"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."

"Please don't be too prejudiced against the poor thing because she's a liar. I do really believe that, like so many liars, there is a real substratum of truth behind her lies. I mean that though, to take an instance, her atrocity stories have grown and grown until every kind of unpleasant story that has ever appeared in print has happened to her or her relations personally, she did have a bad shock initially and did see one, at least, of her relations killed. I think a lot of these displaced persons feel, perhaps justly, that their claim to our notice and sympathy lies in their atrocity value and so they exaggerate and invent."

"What I feel is that if one has got to have a murder actually happening in one's house, one might as well enjoy it, if you know what I mean."

"I will only ask you to believe one thing. I have faith in myself. I believe that I am the man to guide England through the days of crisis that I see coming. If I did not honestly believe that I am needed by my country to steer the ship of state, I would not have done what I have done--made the best of both worlds--saved myself from disaster by a clever trick.''My lord, if you could not make the best of both worlds, you could not be a politician."

"Money, money, money! I think about money morning, noon and night! I dare say it's mercenary of me, but there it is."

"Where there is murder, anything can happen."

"I should have known when I first saw that picture. For it is a very remarkable picture. It is the picture of a murderess painted by her victim-it is the picture of a girl watching her lover dies."

"And how do you know that these fine begonias are not of equal importance?"

"If one sticks too rigidly to one's principles, one would hardly see anybody."

"Sensationalism dies quickly, fear is long-lived."

"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 mean that if you are not absolutely sure of a thing, it is so difficult to commit yourself to a definite course of action."

"In my opinion, the state of mind of a community is always directly due to the influence of the man at the top."

"But surely for everything you have to love you have to pay some price."

"But it is not always the people who say most who do most."

"A man who has shot lions in large quantities has an unfair advantage over other men."

"The eye is diverted from the real business, it is caught by the spectacular action that means nothing--nothing at all."

"I looked at her. Sheila was my girl--the girl I wanted--and wanted for keeps. But it wasn't any use having illusions about her. Sheila was a liar and probably always would be a liar. It was her way of fighting for survival--the quick easy glib denial. It was a child's weapon--and she'd probably never got out of using it. If I wanted Sheila, I must accept her as she was--be at hand to prop up the weak places. We've all got our weak places. Mine were different from Sheila's, but they were there."

"My flute, M. Poirot, is my oldest companion. When everything else fails, music remains."

"One must always proceed with method. I made an error of judgment asking you that question. Toeach man his own knowledge. You could tell me the details of the patient's physical appearance- nothing there would escape you. If I wanted information about the papers on the desk, Mr. Raymond would have noticed anything there was to see. To find out about the fire, I must ask the man whose business is to observe such things. - Detective Hercule Poirot to Doctor Sheppard."

"Two young adventurers for hire. Willing to do anything, go anywhere. Pay must be good. No reasonable offer refused."

"More children suffer from interference than from noninterference."

"People more often kill those they love than those they hate. Possibly because only the people you love can really make life unendurable to you."

"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."

"Sometimes, as a great treat, I was allowed to remove Nursie's snowy ruffled cap. Without it, she somehow retreated into private life and lost her official status. Then, with elaborate care, I would tie a large blue satin ribbon round her head - with enormous difficulty and holding my breath, because tying a bow is no easy matter for a four-year-old. After which I would step back and exclaim in ecstasy: "Oh Nursie, you ARE beautiful!" At which she would smile and say in her gentle voice: "Am I, love?"

"I am not one to rely upon the expert procedure. It is the psychology I seek, not the fingerprint or the cigarette ash."

"It's all very well to talk like that, said Mr. Rafiel. "We, you say? What do you think I can do about it? I can't even walk without help. How can you and I set about preventing a murder? You're about a hundred and I'm a broken-up old crock."

"Somehow, the more I get older, and the more I see of people and sadness and illness and everything, the sorrier I get for everyone."

"It's extraordinary, the amount of misunderstandings there are even between two people who discuss a thing quite often - both of them assuming different things and neither of them discovering the discrepancy."

"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."

"It is a curious thought, but it is only when you see people looking ridiculous that you realize just how much you love them."

"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."

"There is nothing more thrilling in this world, I think, than having a child that is yours, and yet is mysteriously a stranger."

"All life is a jest, Imhotep - and it is death who laughs last. Do you not hear it at every feast? Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow you die."

"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."

"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."

"Mr Rycroft said nothing. It was so difficult not to say the wrong thing to Captain Wyatt that it was usually safer not to reply at all."

"Well, people are like that too. THey create a false door - to deceive. If they are conscious of weakness, of inefficiency, they make an imposing door of self-assertion, of bluster, of overwhelming authority - and, after a time, they get to believe in it themselves. They think, and everybody thinks, that they are like that. But behind that door, Renisenb, is bare rock... And so when reality comes and touches them with the feather of truth - their true self reasserts itself."

"When you're in the middle of a nightmare, something ordinary is the only hope. Anyway, ordinary things are the best. I've always thought so."