Authors were shy, unsociable creatures, atoning for their lack of social aptitude by inventing their own companions and conversations.
I would like it to be said that I was a good writer of detective and thriller stories.
Juliet singles out Romeo. Desdemona claims Othello. They have no doubts, the young, no fear, no pride.
Three months seems to me quite a reasonable time to complete a book, if one can get right down to it.
I know nothing about pistols and revolvers, which is why I usually kill off my characters with a blunt instrument or better with poisons. Besides, poisons are neat and clean and really exciting... I do not think I could look a really ghastly mangled body in the face. It is the means that I am interested in. I do not usually describe the end, which is often a corpse.
What an absurdity to go and bury oneself in South America, where they are always having revolutions.
Nurses - nurses, you'm all the same. Full of cheerfulness over other people's troubles.
I don't go in for being sorry for people. For one thing it's insulting. One is only sorry for people when they're sorry for themselves. Self-pity is one of the biggest stumbling blocks in the world today.
Poirot said placidly, “One does not, you know, employ merely the muscles. I do not need to bend and measure the footprints and pick up the cigarette ends and examine the bent blades of grass. It is enough for me to sit back in my chair and think. It is this – ” he tapped his egg-shaped head – “this, that functions!
Everybody is very much alike, really. But fortunately, perhaps, they don't realise it. - Miss Marple
No sign, so far, of anything sinister—but I live in hope.
Doctors can do almost anything nowadays, can't they, unless they kill you while they're trying to cure you.
I have a certain experience of the way people tell lies.
I have always admired the Esquimaux (Eskimos). One fine day a delicious meal is cooked for dear old mother, and then she goes walking away over the ice, and doesn't come back.
I looked at her. Sheila was my girl--the girl I wanted--and wanted for keeps. But it wasn't any use having illusions about her. Sheila was a liar and probably always would be a liar. It was her way of fighting for survival--the quick easy glib denial. It was a child's weapon--and she'd probably never got out of using it. If I wanted Sheila, I must accept her as she was--be at hand to prop up the weak places. We've all got our weak places. Mine were different from Sheila's, but they were there.
Unless you are good at guessing, it is not much use being a detective.
Beastly things, teeth. Give us trouble from the cradle to the grave.
As you yourself have said, what other explanation can there be?' Poirot stared straight ahead of him. 'That is what I ask myself,' he said. 'That is what I never cease to ask myself.
I've got an uncle myself. Nobody should be held responsible for their uncles. Nature's little throwbacks - that's how I look at it.
I'm going to marry him. And if he thinks he can get divorced and married every two or three years in the approved Hollywood fashion, well, he never made a bigger mistake in his life. He's going to marry and stick to me.
Oh, I'm not afraid of death! What have I got to live for after all? I suppose you believe it's very wrong to kill a person who has injured you-even if they've taken away everything you had in the world?
At the 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.
"I think you're begging the question," said Haydock, "and I can see looming ahead one of those terrible exercises in probability where six men have white hats and six men have black hats and you have to work it out by mathematics how likely it is that the hats will get mixed up and in what proportion. If you start thinking about things like that, you would go round the bend. Let me assure you of that!"
You're shocked, Mr. Burton, at hearing what our gossiping little town thinks. I can tell you this - they always think the worst!
And yet," said Poirot, "suppose an accident-" "Ah, no, my friend-" "From your point of view it would be regrettable, I agree. But nevertheless let us just for one moment suppose it. Then, perhaps, all these here are linked together - by death.
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