Agatha Christie Quotes (320 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

Christie denied having made this remark, which had been attributed to her by her second husband Sir Max Mallowan in a news report (9 March 1954); according to Nigel Dennis, "Genteel Queen of Crime: Agatha Christie Puts Her Zest for Life Into Murder", Life, Volume 40, N° 20, 14 May 1956 http://books.google.com/books?id=p0wEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA102, she was quoting "a witty wife"; Quote Investigator reports on "An Archaeologist Is the Best Husband a Woman Can Have" as of uncertain origin. http://quoteinvestigator.com/2016/07/12/husband/ <br class="br">Disputed <br class="br">Variant: An archaeologist is the best husband a woman can have. The older she gets the more interested he is in her.

“If you place your head in a lion's mouth, then you cannot complain one day if he happens to bite it off.”

Agatha Christie

“Instinct is a marvelous thing. It can neither be explained nor ignored.”

Agatha Christie book The Mysterious Affair at Styles

Source: The Mysterious Affair at Styles

“In a state of emergency martial law is proclaimed.”

Agatha Christie

Curtain - Poirot's Last Case (1975)
Context: I have no more now to say. I do not know, Hastings, if what I have done is justified or not justified. No — I do not know. I do not believe that a man should take the law into his own hands... But on the other hand, I am the law! As a young man in the Belgian police force I shot down a desperate criminal who sat on a roof and fired at people below. In a state of emergency martial law is proclaimed.

“I have no more now to say. I do not know, Hastings, if what I have done is justified or not justified. No — I do not know. I do not believe that a man should take the law into his own hands… But on the other hand, I am the law!”

Agatha Christie

“Believe me, nurse, the difficulty of beginning will be nothing to the difficulty of knowing how to stop.”

Agatha Christie book Murder in Mesopotamia

Dr Reilly
Murder in Mesopotamia (1936)
Context: Believe me, nurse, the difficulty of beginning will be nothing to the difficulty of knowing how to stop. At least that's the way it is with me when I have to make a speech. Someone's got to catch hold of my coat-tails and pull me down by main force.

“I have given them life instead of death, freedom instead of the cords of superstition, beauty and truth instead of corruption and exploitation.”

Agatha Christie

Akhenaten, as portrayed in Akhnaton (1937); Christie later revised the play slightly in 1972, and it was published in 1973.
Context: I have given them life instead of death, freedom instead of the cords of superstition, beauty and truth instead of corruption and exploitation. The old bad days are over for them, the Light of the Aton has risen, and they can dwell in peace and harmony freed from the shadow of fear and oppression.

“Words had become to him a means of obscuring facts — not of revealing them.”

Agatha Christie book The Labours of Hercules

The Labours of Hercules (1967)
Context: Words had become to him a means of obscuring facts — not of revealing them. He was an adept in the art of the useful phrase — that is to say the phrase that falls soothingly on the ear and is quite empty of meaning.

“You give too much rein to your imagination. Imagination is a good servant, and a bad master. The simplest explanation is always the most likely.”

Agatha Christie book The Mysterious Affair at Styles

Source: The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920)

“Never tell all you know—not even to the person you know best.”

Agatha Christie The Secret Adversary

Source: The Secret Adversary

“One of the saddest things in life, is the things one remembers.”

Agatha Christie

“Why shouldn't I hate her? She did the worst thing to me that anyone can do to anyone else. Let them believe that they're loved and wanted and then show them that it's all a sham.”

Agatha Christie book The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side

Source: The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side

“It is 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 book The Clocks

Source: The Clocks

“Good advice is always certain to be ignored, but that's no reason not to give it.”

Agatha Christie

“The truth, however ugly in itself, is always curious and beautiful to seekers after it.”

Agatha Christie book The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

Hercule Poirot
Source: The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926)
Context: Understand this, I mean to arrive at the truth. The truth, however ugly in itself, is always curious and beautiful to seekers after it.

“I know there's a proverb which that says 'To err is human,' but a human error is nothing to what a computer can do if it tries.”

Agatha Christie book Hallowe'en Party

Source: Hallowe'en Party

“I don't think necessity is the mother of invention — invention, in my opinion, arises directly from idleness, possibly also from laziness. To save oneself trouble.”

Agatha Christie

Part III: Growing Up, §II
Source: An Autobiography (1977)

“To every problem, there is a most simple solution.”

Agatha Christie book The Clocks

Source: The Clocks

“Everything must be taken into account. If the fact will not fit the theory — let the theory go.”

Agatha Christie book The Mysterious Affair at Styles

Source: The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920)

“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.”

Agatha Christie book The Mystery of the Blue Train

Miss Viner
Source: The Mystery of the Blue Train (1928)
Context: I was wrong about that young man of yours. 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. Now, whenever that young man looked at you he looked like a sheep. I take back all I said this morning. It is genuine.

“I do not argue with obstinate men. I act in spite of them.”

Agatha Christie book The Mystery of the Blue Train

Hercule Poirot
Source: The Mystery of the Blue Train (1928)

“Every murderer is probably somebody’s old friend.”

Agatha Christie book The Mysterious Affair at Styles

Hercule Poirot
Source: The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920)

“I suppose it is because nearly all children go to school nowadays and have things arranged for them that they seem so forlornly unable to produce their own ideas.”

Agatha Christie

Source: An Autobiography

“Curious things, habits. People themselves never knew they had them.

[Witness for the Prosecution, also published in The Hound of Death and Other Stories. ]”

Agatha Christie book The Witness for the Prosecution and Other Stories

Source: The Witness for the Prosecution and Other Stories