Agatha Christie Quotes

Hercule Poirot once taught me in a very dramatic manner that romance can be a by-product of crime.

"This is M. Hercule Poirot," I said. Megan Barnard gave him a quick, appraising glance. "I've heard of you," she said. "You're the fashionable private sleuth, aren't you?". "Not a pretty description - but it suffices," said Poirot.

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.

One has occasionally to pocket one's pride and readjust one's ideas.

Poirot twinkled at her gently.

Ah, but it is incredible how often things force one to do the thing one would like to do.

There is no such thing as muddle — obscurity, yes — but muddle can exist only in a disorderly brain.

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

Yes, a private investigator like my Wilbraham Rice. The public have taken very strongly to Wilbraham Rice. He bites his nails and eats a lot of bananas. I don't know why I made him bite his nails to start with — it's really rather disgusting — but there it is. He started by biting his nails, and now he has to do it in every single book. So monotonous.

An Englishman thinks first of his work — his job, he calls it — and then of his sport, and last — a good way last — of his wife.

‘Yes, my friend,’ he said. ‘It is so easy to be an American — here in Paris! A nasal voice — the chewing gum — the little goatee — the horned-rimmed spectacles — all the appurtenances of the stage American…’

But how much are the delicate convolutions of the brain influenced by the digestive apparatus? When the mal de mere seizes me I, Hercule Poirot, am a creature with no grey cells, no order, no method — a mere member of the human race somewhere below average intelligence!

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.

“I like to see an angry Englishman,” said Poirot. “They are very amusing. The more emotional they feel the less command they have of language.”

If you confront anyone who has lied with the truth, they usually admit it — often out of sheer surprise. It is only necessary to guess right to produce your effect.