Everything is possible, isn’t it? The world soon teaches one that!
To say a man does mad things because he is mad is merely unintelligent and stupid. A madman is as logical and reasoned in his action as a sane man – given his peculiar biased point of view. For example, if a man insists on going out and squatting about in nothing but a loin cloth his conduct seems eccentric in the extreme. But once you know that the man himself is firmly convinced that he is Mahatma Gandhi, then his conduct becomes perfectly reasonable and logical.
I suppose, like most young people nowadays, boredom is what you dread most in the world, and yet, I can assure you, there are worse things.
In my opinion half the people who spend their lives avoiding being run over by buses had much better be run over and put safely out of the way. They’re no good.
The young have very curious views on unselfishness.
I was interested, M. Poirot, in something you said just now. You said that there was evil done everywhere under the sun. It was almost a quotation from Ecclesiastes.” He paused and then quoted himself: “Yea, also the heart of the sons of men is full of evil, and madness is in their heart while they live.
One cannot be interested in crime without being interested in psychology. It is not the mere act of killing, it is what lies behind it that appeals to the expert.
Women, however charming, have this disadvantage: they distract the mind from food!
That’s where all the trouble in life comes from. Thinking.
You must always be polite to people whose position forbids them to be rude to you.
He would like, really, to take a long holiday. But he couldn’t afford to do that. He could afford it financially, of course, but he couldn’t afford to drop out. You were soon forgotten nowadays.
But yes, exactly that. Think! With thought, all problems can be solved.
There is something about the defencelessness of youth that moves me to tears. Youth is so vulnerable. It is so ruthless – so sure. So generous and so demanding.
Les femmes,” generalized Poirot. “They are marvellous! They invent haphazard – and by miracle they are right. Not that it is that, really. Women observe subconsciously a thousand little details, without knowing that they are doing so. Their subconscious mind adds these little things together – and they call the result intuition.
All Egypt is obsessed with death! And do you know why, Renisenb? Because we have eyes in our bodies, but none in our minds. We cannot conceive of a life other than this one – of a life after death. We can visualize only a continuation of what we know. We have no real belief in a God.
M. Van Aldin is an obstinate man,” said Poirot drily. “I do not argue with obstinate men. I act in spite of them.
That’s the depressing part of places like this. Guest houses run by broken-down gentlepeople. They’re full of failures – of people who have never got anywhere and never will get anywhere, of people who – who have been defeated and broken by life, of people who are old and tired and finished.
Men have the best of this world. I hope that it will not always be so.
We’re all mad, dear lady,” he said as he ushered her in through the door. “That’s the secret of existence. We’re all a little mad.
At a small table, sitting very upright, was one of the ugliest old ladies he had ever seen. It was an ugliness of distinction- it fascinated rather than repelled. She sat very upright. Round her neck was a collar of very large pearls which, improbable though it seemed, were real. Her hands were covered with rings. Her sable coat was pushed back on her shoulders. A very small and expensive black toque was hideously unbecoming to the yellow, toad-like face beneath it.