Oh, my dear friend, it is impossible not to give oneself away - unless one never opens one's mouth! Speech is the deadliest of revealers. - Agatha Christie

In my end is my beginning — that's what people are always saying. But what does it mean? And just where does my story begin? I must try and think...

Mademoiselle, I beseech you, do not do what you are doing.” “Leave dear Linnet alone, you mean!” “It is deeper than that. Do not open your heart to evil.” Her lips fell apart; a look of bewilderment came into her eyes. Poirot went on gravely: “Because — if you do — evil will come…Yes, very surely evil will come…It will enter in and make its home within you, and after a little while it will no longer be possible to drive it out.” Jacqueline stared at him. Her glance seemed to waver, to flicker uncertainly. She said: “I — don’t know — ” Then she cried out definitely, “You can’t stop me.” “No,” said Hercule Poirot. “I cannot stop you.” His voice was sad.

Once I went professionally to an archaeological expedition--and I learnt something there. In the course of an excavation, when something comes up out of the ground, everything is cleared away very carefully all around it. You take away the loose earth, and you scrape here and there with a knife until finally your object is there, all alone, ready to be drawn and photographed with no extraneous matter confusing it. That is what I have been seeking to do--clear away the extraneous matter so that we can see the truth--the naked shining truth.