01c. 1933 ADI 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 / quote ↗
02c. 1933 ADWhen engaged in eating, the brain should be the servant of the stomach.Agatha Christie / quote ↗
03c. 1933 ADMr Rycroft said nothing. It was so difficult not to say the wrong thing to Captain Wyatt that it was usually safer not to reply at all.Agatha Christie / quote ↗
04c. 1933 ADThat, of course, depends entirely on who you mean by 'they'. It's a very vague term. Who is or are 'they'? Is there such a thing, are there such persons as 'they'? We don't know. But I can tell you this. If the most popular explanation of 'they' is accepted, then these people work in very close, self-contained cells. They do that for their own security.~JessopAgatha Christie / quote ↗
05c. 1933 ADIt seems odd that as far as I know nobody has yet been murdered for having too perfect a character! And yet perfection is undoubtedly an irritating thing!Agatha Christie / quote ↗
06c. 1933 ADI was tired of this silly joking about my 'speaking countenance'. I could keep a secret as well as anyone. Poirot had always persisted in the humiliating belief that I am a transparent character and that anyone can read what is passing in my mind.Agatha Christie / quote ↗
07c. 1933 ADWell, people are like that too. THey create a false door - to deceive. If they are conscious of weakness, of inefficiency, they make an imposing door of self-assertion, of bluster, of overwhelming authority - and, after a time, they get to believe in it themselves. They think, and everybody thinks, that they are like that. But behind that door, Renisenb, is bare rock... And so when reality comes and touches them with the feather of truth - their true self reasserts itself.Agatha Christie / quote ↗
08c. 1933 ADThose words of hers had meant nothing - you could not dismiss [however] a human being so easily.Agatha Christie / quote ↗
09c. 1933 ADNature repeats herself more than one would imagine. The sea has infinitely more variety.Agatha Christie / quote ↗
10c. 1933 ADDiscussions of death and such matters do more to unlock the human tongue than any other subject.Agatha Christie / quote ↗
11c. 1933 ADLadies tell their nurses things in a sudden burst of confidence, and then, afterwards, they feel uncomfortable about it and wish they hadn't! It's only human nature.Agatha Christie / quote ↗
12c. 1933 ADHuman nature is always interesting... And it's curious to see how certain types always tend to act in exactly the same way." - Miss Marple, The Herb of Death, Pg. 167Agatha Christie / quote ↗
13c. 1933 ADI was thinking, that when my time comes, I should be sorry if the only plea I had to offer was that of justice. Because it might mean that only justice would be meted out to me.Agatha Christie / quote ↗
14c. 1933 ADShe looked at them with shining eyes. Her chin went up. She said: "You regard it as impossible that a sinner should be struck down by the wrath of God! I do not!" The judge stroked his chin. He murmured in a slightly ironic voice: "My dear lady, in my experience of ill-doing, Providence leaves the work of conviction and chastisement to us mortals-and the process is often fraught with difficulties. There are no short cuts.Agatha Christie / quote ↗
15c. 1933 ADToo much mercy... often resulted in further crimes which were fatal to innocent victims who need not have been victims if justice had been put first and mercy second.Agatha Christie / quote ↗
16c. 1933 ADShe'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!Agatha Christie / quote ↗
17c. 1933 ADPapa always said that in the beginning men and women roamed the world together, equal in strength - like lions and tigers -""And giraffes?" interpolated Colonel Race slyly. I laughed. Everyone makes fun of that giraffe."And giraffes. They were nomadic, you see. It wasn't till they settled down in communities, and women did one kind of thing and men another, that women got weak. And of course, underneath, one is still the same - one feels the same, I mean - and that is why women worship physical strength in men - it's what they once had and have lost.""Almost ancestor worship, in fact?" "Something of the kind.""And you really think that's true? That women worship strength, I mean?""I think it's quite true - if one's honest. You think you admire moral qualities,but when you fall in love, you revert to the primitive where the physical is all that counts. But I don't think that's the end, if you lived in primitive conditions it would be all right, but you don't - and so, in the end, the other thing wins after all. It's the things that are apparently conquered that always do win, isn't it? They win in the only way that counts. Like what the Bible says about losing your life and finding it.”.“In the end," said Colonel Race thoughtfully, "you fall in love - and you fall out of it, is that what you mean?""Not exactly, but you can put it that way if you like.Agatha Christie / quote ↗
18c. 1933 ADYou are, madame, so perfectly armoured, so completely sure of yourself.''Now I wonder, if I am to take that as a compliment?''It is, perhaps, a warning--not to treat life with arrogance.Agatha Christie / quote ↗
19c. 1933 ADHe has neither what I call the outward vision (seeing details all around you what is called an observant person) nor the inner vision--concentration, the focusing of the mind on one object. He has a purposefully limited vision. He sees only what blends and harmonises with the bent of his mind.Agatha Christie / quote ↗
20c. 1933 ADI 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.Agatha Christie / quote ↗
21c. 1933 ADYou are young still. Naturally, one tries this, that and the other, but what one eventually settles down into is the life one prefers.Agatha Christie / quote ↗
22c. 1933 ADAnd they had no idea that they and many others were automatically pronounced deadly dull solely on that account. Only by the young of course, but then, they would have thought indulgently, young people knew nothing about life. Poor dears, they were always worrying about examinations, or their sex life, or buying some extraordinary clothes, or doing some extraordinary things to their hair to make them more noticeable.Agatha Christie / quote ↗
23c. 1933 ADThere 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.Agatha Christie / quote ↗
