When people ask “Do you put real people in your books?” the answer is that, for me, it is quite impossible to write about anyone I know, or have ever spoken to, or indeed have even heard about! For some reason, it kills them for me stone dead.
Inside the room, the pall fear had fallen anew. Again, surreptitiously, they watched each other.
Oh yes,” said Miss Marple fervently. “I always believe the worst. What is so sad is that one is usually justified in doing so.
Life is very trying.
You see,” he said sadly, “you have no instincts.” “It was intelligence you were requiring just now,” I pointed out. “The two often go together,” said Poirot enigmatically.
Truth,” she said, “is seldom romantic.
My dear Bobby, did I understand you to say that someone had offered you a thousand a year? A thousand?” “Holed it in one, Dad,” said Bobby. “It’s impossible,” said the Vicar. Bobby was not hurt by this frank incredulity. His estimate of his own monetary value differed little from that of his father. “They must be complete mutts,” he agreed heartily.
All these Ministers insist on coming in and having kittens all over the place.
To deceive deliberately – that is one thing. But to be so sure of your facts, of your ideas and of their essential truth that the details do not matter – that, my friend, is a special characteristic of particularly honest persons.
Uncertainty creates panic.
But to everything that happens there has to be a past. A past which is by now incorporated in today, but which existed yesterday or last month or last year. The present is nearly always rooted in the past.
The true Western spirit of hustle,” said Poirot with a smile.
Philip Lombard, summing up the girl opposite in a mere flash of his quick moving eyes thought to himself:.
I have always believed that a love of nature was essentially a healthy sign in a man.
To separate the main issue from the side issues is the first task of the orderly mind.
Never display emotion.
Some people are wise – they never expect to be happy. I did.
She is in love – heart, soul, and body – and she is not of those who love lightly and often.
Los ojos ven, a veces lo que se ha querido que vieran.
There are certain humiliating moments in the lives of the greatest of men. It has been said that no man is a hero to his valet. To that may be added that few men are heroes to themselves at the moment of visiting their dentist.
It is not for me to run here and there, doing amateurishly the things that for a small sum someone else can do with professional skill.