Agatha Christie: One must make one's own mistakes

Liking is more important than loving. It lasts. I want what is between us to last, Luke. I don't want us just to love each other and marry and get tired of each other and then want to marry some one else.

Agatha Christie

tired important reality

There are more important things than finding the murderer. And justice is a fine word, but it is sometimes difficult to say exactly what one means by it. In my opinion, the important thing is to clear the innocent. - Hercule Poirot

Agatha Christie

important justice mean

That is what I mean. A bath! The receptacle of porcelain, one turns the taps and fills it, one gets in, one gets out and ghoosh - ghoosh - ghoosh, the water goes down the waste pipe!" "M. Poirot are you quite mad?" "No, I am extremely sane.

Agatha Christie

mad water mean

If only-if only, Hastings, you would part your hair in the middle instead of at the side! What a difference it would make to the symmetry of your appearance. And your moustache. If you must have a moustache, let it be a real moustache-a thing of beauty such as mine.

Agatha Christie

differences real hair

She didn't give George any too easy a time when she was alive. She was one of those semi-invalids – I believe she had really something wrong with her, but whatever it was she played it for all it was worth. She was capricious, exacting, unreasonable. She complained from morning to night. George was expected to wait on her, hand and foot and everything he did was always wrong and he got cursed for it. Most men, I'm fully convinced, would have hit her with a hatchet long ago.

Agatha Christie

morning men believe

Life itself is an unsolved mystery", said the clergyman gravely.

Agatha Christie

unsolved-mysteries clergymen mystery

To keep something wild is far more difficult than to preserve it.

Agatha Christie

preserves difficult

One knows so little. When one knows more it is too late.

Agatha Christie

late too-late littles

Poirot: Do not allow Hate into your heart, for it will make a home there.

Agatha Christie

hate home heart

The rottenness comes from within.

Agatha Christie

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.

Agatha Christie

our-world block sorry

Everybody is very much alike, really. But fortunately, perhaps, they don't realise it. - Miss Marple

Agatha Christie

miss-marple realising missing

Sensationalism dies quickly, fear is long-lived.

Agatha Christie

sensationalism dies long

But no artist, I now realize, can be satisfied with art alone. There is a natural craving for recognition which cannot be gain-said.

Agatha Christie

recognition gains art

There is no detective in England equal to a spinster lady of uncertain age with plenty of time on her hands.

Agatha Christie

detectives age hands

The trouble with you and me, is that we don't live in the real world. We dream of fantastic things that may never happen.

Agatha Christie

real dream world

The heart of a woman who loves will forgive many blows.

Agatha Christie

forgiving blow heart

I have often had occasion to notice how, where a direct question would fail to elicit a response, a false assumption brings instant information in the form of a contradiction.

Agatha Christie

assumption information failing

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.

Agatha Christie

girl liars children

Lie is more worth living, more full of interest when you are likely to lose it. It shouldn't be, perhaps, but it is. When you're young and strong and healthy, and life stretches ahead of you, living isn't really important at all. It's young people who commit suicide easily, out of despair from love, sometimes from sheer anxiety and worry. But old people know how valuable life is and how interesting. - Jane Marple

Agatha Christie

strong suicide lying