Agatha Christie

One of the luckiest things that can happen to you in life is I think to have a happy childhood.

I like living. I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow, but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing.

Evil is not something superhuman, it's something less than human.

There is nothing more thrilling in this world, I think, than having a child that is yours, and yet is mysteriously a stranger.

I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow, but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing.

The best time to plan a book is while you're doing the dishes.

Dogs are wise. They crawl away into a quiet corner and lick their wounds and do not rejoin the world until they are whole once more.

It is ridiculous to set a detective story in New York City. New York City is itself a detective story.

Where large sums of money are concerned it is advisable to trust nobody.

I live now on borrowed time waiting in the anteroom for the summons that will inevitably come. And then - I go on to the next thing whatever it is. One doesn't luckily have to bother about that.

These little grey cells. It is up to them.

Any woman can fool a man if she wants to and if he's in love with her.

Every murderer is probably somebody's old friend.

Never do anything yourself that others can do for you.

I married an archaeologist because the older I grow the more he appreciates me.

Most successes are unhappy. That's why they are successes - they have to reassure themselves about themselves by achieving something that the world will notice.

There's too much tendency to attribute to God the evils that man does of his own free will.

An archaeologist is the best husband a woman can have. The older she gets the more interested he is in her.

Very few of us are what we seem.

The popular idea that a child forgets easily is not an accurate one. Many people go right through life in the grip of an idea which has been impressed on them in very tender years.

It is a curious thought but it is only when you see people looking ridiculous that you realize just how much you love them.

But surely for everything you have to love you have to pay some price.

Everything that has existed lingers in the Eternity.

One doesn't recognize the really important moments in one's life until it's too late.

I don't think necessity is the mother of invention. Invention in my opinion arises directly from idleness, possibly also from laziness - to save oneself trouble.

The happy people are failures because they are on such good terms with themselves they don't give a damn.

Crime is terribly revealing. Try and vary your methods as you will your tastes your habits your attitude of mind and your soul is revealed by your actions.

Too 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.

Good advice is always certain to be ignored but that's no reason not to give it.

I specialize in murders of quiet domestic interest.

If one sticks too rigidly to one's principles one would hardly see anybody.

Curious things habits. People themselves never knew they had them.

I've always believed in writing without a collaborator because where two people are writing the same book each believes he gets all the worry and only half the royalties.