You are young still. Naturally, one tries this, that and the other, but what one eventually settles down into is the life one prefers.
A madman is a very dangerous thing.
She couldn’t let the past go and she could never see the future as it really was, only as she imagined it to be.
Curious, sometimes, how one’s thoughts seemed to swing in a kaleidoscope. It happened to me now. A bewildering shuffling and reshuffling of memories, of events. Then the mosaic settled into its true pattern.
One has to dare if one wants to get anywhere,′ said Mrs. Bantry.
But it is not always the people who say most who do most.
The trouble with her is that either she thinks that at last she’s got to that spot or place or that moment in her life where everything’s like a fairy tale come true, that nothing can go wrong, that she’ll never be unhappy again; or else she’s down in the dumps, a woman whose life is ruined, who’s never known love and happiness and who never will again.
A malformation of the grey cells may coincide quite easily with the face of a Madonna.
Men have courage-one knows that... but they are more easily deceived than women.
Sanity is the one unbelievable bore. One must be mad, slightly twisted – then one sees life from a new and entrancing angle.
The great thing in these cases is to keep an absolutely open mind. Most crimes, you see, are so absurdly simple.
Poirot and I behaved in the customary fashion of people being shown over houses. We stood stock still, looking a little ill at ease, murmuring remarks such as: “Very nice.” “A very pleasant room.” “The morning-room, you say?
She’s had a long life of experience in noticing evil, fancying evil, suspecting evil and going forth to do battle with evil.
People don’t do things without a reason.
She’s not sensual. She doesn’t want affairs. It’s just cold-blooded experiment on her part and the fun of stirring people up and setting them against each other. She dabbled in that too. She’s the sort of woman who’s never had a row with anyone in her life – but rows always happen where she is! She makes them happen. She’s kind of female Iago. She must have drama. But she doesn’t want to be involved herself. She’s always outside pulling strings – looking on – enjoying it!
In my opinion, the state of mind of a community is always directly due to the influence of the man at the top.
Only cats and witches walk in the dark.
Murder is a nasty business on an empty stomach.
And families now, families who have been separated throughout the year, assemble once more together. Now under these conditions, my friend, you must admit that there will occur a great amount of strain. People who do not feel amiable are putting great pressure on themselves to appear amiable! There is at Christmas time a great deal of hypocrisy, honourable hypocrisy, hypocrisy undertaken pour le bon motif, c’est entendu, but nevertheless hypocrisy.
I know enough of life to know that you can never judge any case on its outside merits.