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Agatha Christie Quotes
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Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie, Lady Mallowan, was an English writer known for her sixty-six detective novels and fourteen short story collections, particularly those revolving around fictional detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. She also wrote the world's longest-running play, The Mousetrap, which was performed in the West End from 1952 to 2020, as well as six novels under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott. In 1971, she was made a Dame for her contributions to literature. Guinness World Records lists Christie as the best-selling fiction writer of all time, her novels having sold more than two billion copies.

Christie was born into a wealthy upper-middle-class family in Torquay, Devon, and was largely home-schooled. She was initially an unsuccessful writer with six consecutive rejections, but this changed in 1920 when The Mysterious Affair at Styles, featuring detective Hercule Poirot, was published. Her first husband was Archibald Christie; they married in 1914 and had one child before divorcing in 1928. During both World Wars, she served in hospital dispensaries, acquiring a thorough knowledge of the poisons which featured in many of her novels, short stories, and plays. Following her marriage to archaeologist Max Mallowan in 1930, she spent several months each year on digs in the Middle East and used her first-hand knowledge of his profession in her fiction.

According to Index Translationum, she remains the most-translated individual author. Her novel And Then There Were None is one of the highest-selling books of all time, with approximately 100 million copies sold. Christie's stage play The Mousetrap holds the world record for the longest initial run. It opened at the Ambassadors Theatre in the West End of London on 25 November 1952, and by September 2018 there had been more than 27,500 performances. The play was closed down in March 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic.

In 1955, Christie was the first recipient of the Mystery Writers of America's Grand Master Award. Later that year, Witness for the Prosecution received an Edgar Award for best play. In 2013, she was voted the best crime writer and The Murder of Roger Ackroyd the best crime novel ever by 600 professional novelists of the Crime Writers' Association. In September 2015, And Then There Were None was named the "World's Favourite Christie" in a vote sponsored by the author's estate. Most of Christie's books and short stories have been adapted for television, radio, video games, and graphic novels. More than thirty feature films are based on her work. Wikipedia  

✵ 15. September 1890 – 12. January 1976
Agatha Christie photo
Agatha Christie: 320 quotes67 likes

Agatha Christie Quotes

“He is like a cat. And all cats are thieves.”

Agatha Christie

Murder for Christmas (1939, Holiday for Murder, Hercule Poirot’s Christmas)

““You do well. Method and order, they are everything,” replied Poirot.”

Agatha Christie book Death on the Nile

Death on the Nile (1937)

“Mrs. Oliver in her own opinion was famous for her intuition. One intuition succeeded another with remarkable rapidity, and Mrs. Oliver always claimed the right to justify the particular intuition which turned out to be right!”

Agatha Christie book Third Girl

Third Girl (1966)

“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…”

Agatha Christie book Endless Night

Michael Rogers (the narrator)
Endless Night (1967)

“On the seat opposite him was an American tourist. The pattern of his clothes, of his overcoat, the grip he carried, down to his hopeful friendliness and his naïve absorption in the scenery, even the guidebook in his hand, all gave him away and proclaimed him a small town American seeing Europe for the first time. In another minute or so, Poirot judged, he would break into speech. His wistful dog-like expression could not be mistaken.”

Agatha Christie book The Labours of Hercules

The Labours of Hercules (1967)

“Oh, dear, it's quite true what Dr. Reilly said. How does one stop writing? If I could find a really good telling phrase… Like the one M. Poirot used. In the name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate… Something like that.”

Agatha Christie book Murder in Mesopotamia

Amy Leatheran
Murder in Mesopotamia (1936)

“These little things are very significant.”

Agatha Christie book Sleeping Murder

Sleeping Murder (1976)

“Flattery, in Tuppence’s opinion, should always be laid on with a trowel where a man is concerned.”

Agatha Christie book N or M?

N or M? (1941)

“Truth of it is,’ said Commander Haydock, steering rather erratically round a one-way island and narrowly missing collision with a large van, ‘when the beggars are right, one remembers it, and when they’re wrong you forget it.”

Agatha Christie book N or M?

N or M? (1941)

“John, forgive me… for what I can't help doing.”

Agatha Christie

Henrietta Savernake
The Hollow (1946)

“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.”

Agatha Christie book Death in the Clouds

Death in the Clouds (1935)

“It would be difficult Bland thought, to forget Hercule Poirot, and this not entirely for complimentary reasons.”

Agatha Christie book Dead Man's Folly

Dead Man's Folly (1956)

“I can imagine anything! That's the trouble with me. I can imagine things now — this minute. I could even make them sound all right, but of course none of them would be true.”

Agatha Christie book Dead Man's Folly

Ariadne Oliver
Dead Man's Folly (1956)

“Précisément! The body — the cage — is everything of the most respectable — but through the bars, the wild animal looks out.”

Agatha Christie book Murder on the Orient Express

Murder on the Orient Express (1934)

“"I saw a particular personage and I threatened him — yes, Mademoiselle, I, Hercule Poirot, threatened him."
"With the police?"
"No," said Poirot drily, "With the Press — a much more deadly weapon."”

Agatha Christie book The Mystery of the Blue Train

The Mystery of the Blue Train (1928)

“Tout de même, it is not necessary that he should be killed on the Orient Express. There are other places.”

Agatha Christie book Murder on the Orient Express

Murder on the Orient Express (1934)

“Men are foolish, are they not, Mademoiselle? To eat, to drink, to breathe the good air, it is a very pleasant thing, Mademoiselle. One is foolish to leave all that simply because one has no money — or because the heart aches. L´amour, it causes many fatalities, does it not?”

Agatha Christie book The Mystery of the Blue Train

Hercule Poirot
The Mystery of the Blue Train (1928)

“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.”

Agatha Christie book Murder on the Orient Express

Hercule Poirot
Murder on the Orient Express (1934)

“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…”

Agatha Christie book Death in the Clouds

Death in the Clouds (1935)

“Let us think only of the good days that are to come.”

Agatha Christie

(1945)

“It’s so dreadfully easy — killing people… And you begin to feel that it doesn’t matter… That it’s only you that matters! It’s dangerous — that.”

Agatha Christie book Death on the Nile

Death on the Nile (1937)

“The intense interest aroused in the public by what was known at the time as “The Styles Case” has now somewhat subsided. Nevertheless, in view of the world-wide notoriety which attended it, I have been asked, both by my friend Poirot and the family themselves, to write an account of the whole story. This, we trust, will effectually silence the sensational rumours which still persist.”

Agatha Christie book The Mysterious Affair at Styles

Captain Arthur Hastings, first paragraph
The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920)

“Ah, my friend, one may live in a big house and yet have no comfort.”

Agatha Christie book The Mysterious Affair at Styles

The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920)

“It merely confirmed in him his long-held belief that you should never believe anything anyone said without first checking it. Suspect everybody, had been for many years, if not his whole life, one of his first axioms.”

Agatha Christie book Third Girl

Third Girl (1966)

“I don't think I shall ever forget my first sight of Hercule Poirot. Of course, I got used to him later on, but to begin with it was a shock, and I think everyone else must have felt the same! I don't know what I'd imagined — something like Sherlock Holmes — […] Of course, I knew he was a foreigner, but I hadn't expected him to be quite as foreign as he was, if you know what I mean. When you saw him you just wanted to laugh! He was like something on the stage or at the pictures. […] He looked like a hairdresser in a comic play!”

Agatha Christie book Murder in Mesopotamia

Amy Leatheran
Murder in Mesopotamia (1936)

“And Mr. Burnaby said acutely: "Well, it doesn't seem to have done her much good, poor lass." But after a while they stopped talking about her and discussed instead who was going to win the Grand National. For, as Mr. Ferguson was saying at that minute in Luxor, it is not the past that matters but the future.”

Agatha Christie book Death on the Nile

Death on the Nile (1937)

““This affair must all be unravelled from within.” He tapped his forehead. “These little grey cells. It is ‘up to them’ — as you say over here.””

Agatha Christie book The Mysterious Affair at Styles

Hercule Poirot
The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920)

“It’s not impossible my dear. It’s just a very remarkable coincidence — and remarkable coincidences do happen.”

Agatha Christie book Sleeping Murder

Sleeping Murder (1976)

“I agree with you. It is here a family affair. It is a poison that works in the blood — it is intimate — it is deep-seated. There is here, I think, hate and knowledge…”

Agatha Christie

Murder for Christmas (1939, Holiday for Murder, Hercule Poirot’s Christmas)

“Tout de même,” said Poirot, “since I cannot find anything, eh bien, then the logic falls out of the window.”

Agatha Christie book Third Girl

Third Girl (1966)

“Any medical man who predicts exactly when a patient will die, or exactly how long he will live, is bound to make a fool of himself. The human factor is always incalculable. The weak have often unexpected powers of resistance, the strong sometimes succumb.”

Agatha Christie book After the Funeral

After the Funeral (1953)

“I have often noticed that being a devoted wife saps the intellect,’ murmured Tommy.”

Agatha Christie book N or M?

N or M? (1941)

“She shrugged her shoulders slightly.
“What can one do?”
“You are a philosopher, Mademoiselle.””

Agatha Christie book Murder on the Orient Express

Murder on the Orient Express (1934)

““You have been to the Riviera before, Georges?” said Poirot to his valet the following morning.
George was an intensely English, rather wooden-faced individual.
“Yes, sir. I was here two years ago when I was in the service of Lord Edward Frampton.”
“And to-day,” murmured his master, “you are here with Hercule Poirot. How one mounts in the world!””

Agatha Christie book The Mystery of the Blue Train

The Mystery of the Blue Train (1928)

“The rottenness comes from within.”

Agatha Christie

(1945)

“I don't pretend to be an author or to know anything about writing. I'm doing this simply because Dr Reilly asked me to, and somehow when Dr Reilly asks you to do a thing you don't like to refuse.”

Agatha Christie book Murder in Mesopotamia

Amy Leatheran
Murder in Mesopotamia (1936)

“It shows you, Madame, the dangers of conversation. It is a profound belief of mine that if you can induce a person to talk to you for long enough, on any subject whatever, sooner or later they will give themselves away.”

Agatha Christie book After the Funeral

After the Funeral (1953)

“I am not keeping back facts. Every fact that I know is in your possession. You can draw your own deductions from them.”

Agatha Christie book The Mysterious Affair at Styles

Hercule Poirot
The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920)

“Murder isn’t — it really isn’t — a thing to tamper with lightheartedly.”

Agatha Christie book Sleeping Murder

Sleeping Murder (1976)

““It makes me madder than a hornet to be disbelieved,” she explained.”

Agatha Christie book Murder on the Orient Express

Murder on the Orient Express (1934)

“Men always tell such silly lies.”

Agatha Christie book After the Funeral

After the Funeral (1953)

“"I have made my choice, Hori. I will share my life with you for good or evil, until death comes…" With his arms round her, with the sudden new sweetness of his face against hers, she was filled with an exultant richness of living.”

Agatha Christie

(1945)

“They have, all of them, such wonderful good manners. Not taught good manners — the natural thing. I could never have believed till I came here that natural courtesy could be such a wonderful — such a positive thing.”

Agatha Christie book The Burden

The Burden (1956)

“I think perhaps it wasn’t a good idea to read aloud Gibbon to me in the evenings, because if it’s nice and hot by the fire, there’s something about Gibbon that does, rather, make you go to sleep.”

Agatha Christie

A Murder is Announced (1950)

“"You know that in all tombs there is always a false door?"
Renisenb stared. "Yes, of course."
"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 a bare rock … And so when reality comes and touches them with the feather of truth - their true self reasserts itself."”

Agatha Christie

(1945)

“What beats me — it always does — is how a man can be so clever and yet be such a perfect fool.”

Agatha Christie book The Pale Horse

The Pale Horse (1961)

“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.”

Agatha Christie book Death in the Clouds

Death in the Clouds (1935)

“Now there is no murder without a motive.”

Agatha Christie book The Mysterious Affair at Styles

The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920)