Agatha Christie: Likeness

Agatha Christie was English mystery and detective writer. Explore interesting quotes on likeness.
Agatha Christie: 640 quotes67 likes

“I have always been so sure — too sure… But now I am very humble and I say like a little child: "I do not know…"”

Agatha Christie

Hercule Poirot
Curtain - Poirot's Last Case (1975)

“Last time I had my hands on you, you felt like a bird - struggling to escape. You'll never escape now…”

Agatha Christie book Towards Zero

MacWhirter
Towards Zero (1944)

“Because, Renisenb, it is so easy and it costs so little labour to write down ten bushels of barley, or a hundred head of cattle, or ten fields of spelt - and the thing that is written will come to seem like the real thing, and so the writer and the scribe will come to despise the man who ploughs the fields and reaps the barley and raises the cattle - but all the same the fields and the cattle are real - they are not just marks of inks on papyrus. And when all the records and all the papyrus rolls are destroyed and the scribes are scattered, the men who toil and reap will go on, and Egypt will still live.”

Agatha Christie

Hori
(1945)

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

Agatha Christie

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

“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)

“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)

“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)

“"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)

“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)

““I — I don’t regret what I did. I think that you are a kind man, Mr. Poirot, and that possibly you might understand. You see, I’ve been so terribly afraid.”
“Afraid?”
“Yes, it’s difficult for a gentleman to understand, I expect. But you see, I’m not a clever woman at all, and I’ve no training and I’m getting older — and I’m so terrified for the future. I’ve not been able to save anything — how could I with Emily to be cared for? — and as I get older and more incompetent there won’t be any one who wants me. They’ll want somebody young and brisk. I’ve — I’ve known so many people like I am — nobody wants you and you live in a one room and you can’t have a fire or any warmth and not very much to eat and at last you can’t even pay the rent on your room … There are Institutions, of course, but it’s not very easy to get into them unless you have influential friends, and I haven’t. There are a good many others situated like I am — poor companions — untrained useless women with nothing to look forward to but a deadly fear…””

Agatha Christie book The Labours of Hercules

The Labours of Hercules (1967)

“I must have a talk with you, David, and learn all the new ideas. As far as I can see, one must hate everybody but at the same time give them free medical attention and a lot of extra education, poor things! All those helpless little children herded into schoolhouses every day — and cod liver oil forced down babies’ throats whether they like it or not — such nasty-smelling stuff.”

Agatha Christie

Lucy Angkatell
The Hollow (1946)

“Like most Englishmen, he felt something strongly, and proceeded to muddle around until he had, somehow or other, cleared up the mess.”

Agatha Christie book N or M?

N or M? (1941)

“Yes. I like to see people get angry. I like it very much. But here in England they do not get angry like they do in Spain. In Spain they take out their knives and they curse and shout. In England they do nothing, just get very red in the face and shut up their mouths tight.”

Agatha Christie

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

““Here are my roses. Like ’em?”
“They’re beautiful,” said Laura politely.
“On the whole,” said Mr. Baldock, “I prefer them to human beings. They don’t last as long for one thing.””

Agatha Christie book The Burden

The Burden (1956)

“It’s so messy bleeding like a pig.”

Agatha Christie

A Murder is Announced (1950)

“The reason he liked attending rich patients rather than poor ones was the he could exercise his active imagination in prescribing for their ailments.”

Agatha Christie book Surprise! Surprise!

Surprise! Surprise! (1965)

“There’s no reason why women shouldn’t behave like rational beings,” said Simon stolidly.
Poirot said dryly:
“Quite frequently they do. That is even more upsetting!”

Agatha Christie book Death on the Nile

Death on the Nile (1937)

““Tcha! Tcha!” cried Poirot irritably. “You argue like a child.””

Agatha Christie book The Mysterious Affair at Styles

The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920)