““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.””
Hercule Poirot
The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920)
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Agatha Christie320
English mystery and detective writer 1890–1976Related quotes
“You should employ your little grey cells”
Agatha Christie book The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
Source: The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
Paul Cézanne (1839–1906) French painter
Source: Quotes of Paul Cezanne, after 1900, Cézanne, - a Memoir with Conversations, (1897 - 1906), p. 150, in: 'What he told me – I. The motif'
Anton Chekhov (1860–1904) Russian dramatist, author and physician
Letter to A.S. Suvorin (December 3, 1892)
Letters
Johan Falkberget (1879–1967) Norwegian politician
The Fourth Night Watch (1923)
Context: It was as if he sat in cross currents from many eternities — some with a grey cold light over them, others completely in darkness. Was it the agony of Gethsemane? The disintegration of his body was in full swing. He remained sitting there, remembering something he had experienced one night last winter. It seemed to him that the great silence, which only comes when a human being has drawn his last breath, enveloped him. And suddenly Kathryn was standing beside his bed. She took his hand in hers and smiled sadly. "Do you wish, Husband, that I shall pray for you, that you may still live?" she asked. "Here, from where I now am, it is not such a long way to God as from the place where you are." Her voice was without reproach, and all fear and suffering had left her face.
"Oh, my dear," he had said. "Do not intervene in the wise counsels of God. Don't you hate me, Kathryn?"
She smiled again. "There is no hate here. No, Husband, I love you more dearly now than when I lived — but it is with another love, a love purified of all self-love." But he couldn't quite decide whether this was a dream or a vision. Now, when his earthly happiness was in ruins, his spirit became more and more liberated. The eyes of his soul had the land of Canaan in sight. He had come closer now. He noticed it in so many things.
“You have an excellent heart, my friend — but your grey cells are in a deplorable condition.”
Agatha Christie (1890–1976) English mystery and detective writer
Hercule Poirot’s Early Cases (1974)
Patrick Rothfuss book The Name of the Wind
Source: The Name of the Wind (2007), Chapter 63, “Walking and Talking” (p. 468)