The trouble is, that this sort of things once it starts, grows.
The truth is people are an extraordinary mixture of heroism and cowardice.
Hercule Poirot spread out his hands in his most foreign manner.
Bottled, was he?" Said Colonel Bantry, with an Englishman's sympathy for alcoholic excess. "Oh, well, can't judge a fellow by what he does when he's drunk? When I was at Cambridge, I remember I put a certain utensil - well - well, nevermind.
A meal should always lie lightly on the estomac," said Poirot. "It should not be so heavy as to paralyze thought.
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.
Race nodded. He had only met George's wife once. He had thought her a singularly lovely nitwit—but certainly not a melancholic type.
They tried to be too clever---and that was their undoing.
One must have consideration for those less gifted than oneself.
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.
There was something magical about an island—the mere word suggested fantasy. You lost touch with the world—an island was a world of its own. A world, perhaps, from which you might never return.
Decidedly it was the policy of an imbecile.
Like many old people she slept lightly and had periods of wakefulness which she used for the planning of some action or actions to be carried out on the next or following days.
One little soldier boy left all alone. How did it end? Oh, yes! He got married and then there were none.
A malformation of the grey cells may coincide quite easily with the face of a Madonna.
Things never burn when you want them to, they got out. You'd probably have had to strike match after match.
People are capable of surprising one frightfully. One gets an idea of them into one's head, and sometimes it's absolutely wrong. Not always - but sometimes.
But it wasn't really scandals Miss Marple wanted. Nothing to get your teeth into in scandals nowadays. Just men and women changing partners, and calling attention to it, instead of trying decently to hush it up and be properly ashamed of themselves.
You know what girls are -- they go to these queer parties in studios where the young men have funny ties and they come home and talk a lot of nonsense.
They are never really dead, these super criminals.
You've no idea of the agony of having your characters taken and made to say things that they never would have said, and do things that they never would have done. And if you protest, all they say is that it's ‘good theatre.
It is the brain, the little gray cells on which one must rely. One must seek the truth within--not without.
Eve. The Lee family reunion, never a lively affair, is interrupted.
There is no detective in England equal to a spinster lady of uncertain age with plenty of time on her hands.
Nobody understands the art of living nowadays,... Catching trains, making appointments, fixing times for everything—all nonsense. Get up with the sun I say, have your meals when you feel like it, and never tie yourself to a time or a date. I could teach people how to live if they would listen to me.
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..
Most successes are unhappy. That's why they are successes—they have to reassure themselves about themselves by achieving something that the world will notice.
If you care for money too much, it is only the money you see, everything else is in shadow.
One man in a thousand can see the moons of Jupiter. Because the other nine hundred and ninety-nine can't see them there's no reason to doubt that the moons of Jupiter exist, and certainly no reason for calling the thousandth man a lunatic.
Men have the best of this world. I hope that it will not always be so.
One little Indian left all alone, he went out and hanged himself and then there were none.
Ah, I see you are an actress, Miss Marple, as well as an avenger.
I've always jumped on sentiment—and here I am being more sentimental than anybody. What idiots girls are! I've always thought so. I suppose I shall sleep with his photograph under my pillow, and dream about him all night. It's dreadful to feel you've been false to your principles.
He's not dead. But I have a feeling he's bored. That's worse.
He, of course, is a liar, but that doesn't really matter because, if you know liars are liars, it comes to the same thing.
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.
Remorse, she said, with great gusto. Remorse?
There are crimes that cannot be brought home to their perpetrators. Instance the Rogerses'. Another instance, old Wargrave, who committed his murder strictly within the law.
The police, as servants of law, must be of a high order of integrity. For their word is perforce believed by the virtue of their profession.
One can't argue with a point of view.
But I've always found that those who talk most about blood have never actually seen it run.
Sometimes what you think is an end is only a beginning. And that wouldn't do at all.
Love can be a very frightening thing.
We owe most of our great inventions and most of the achievements of genius to idleness.
But Amyas was like all the Crales, a ruthless egoist. He loved Caroline but he never once considered her in any way. He did as he pleased.
Well, you can't go about having blood feuds and stabbing each other like Crosicans or the Mafia," said the Colonel. "Say what you like, trial by jury is a sound system.
I believe the present matters --- not the past! The past muust go. If we seek to keep the past alive, we end, I think, by distorting it. We see it in exaggerated terms --- a false perspective. - Hilda Lee.
Tuppence had once laid upon him a serious injunction. ' If anybody over the age of sixty-five finds fault with you,' she said, 'never argue. Never try to say you're right. Apologize at once and say it was all your fault and you're very sorry and you'll never do it again.
Tea! Bless ordinary everyday afternoon tea!
