Agatha Christie

A mother's love for her child is like nothing else in the world. It knows no law, no pity, it dares all things and crushes down remorselessly all that stands in its path.

If you love, you will suffer, and if you do not love, you do not know the meaning of a Christian life.

Every murderer is probably somebody's old friend.

I'm not often bored,' I assured her. "Life's not long enough for that.

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

He was very much a man of moods, possibly owing to what is styled the artistic temperment. I have never seen, myself, why the possession of artistic ability should be supposed to excuse a man from a decent exercise of self-control.

There was a moment when I changed from an amateur to a professional. I assumed the burden of a profession, which is to write even when you don't want to, don't much like what you're writing, and aren't writing particularly well

Until one looks back on one's own past one fails to realise what an extraordinary view of the world a child has.

You gave too much rein to your imagination. Imagination is a good servant, and a bad master. The simplest explanation is always the most likely.

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

It is clear that the books owned the shop rather than the other way about. Everywhere they had run wild and taken possession of their habitat, breeding and multiplying, and clearly lacking any strong hand to keep them down.

If you are to be Hercule Poirot, you must think of everything.

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

I would like it to be said that I was a good writer of detective and thriller stories.

There's no agony like [getting started]. You sit in a room, biting pencils, looking at a typewriter, walking about, or casting yourself down on a sofa, feeling you want to cry your head off.

Writing is a great comfort to people like me, who are unsure of themselves and have trouble expressing themselves properly.

Poirot: Do not allow Hate into your heart, for it will make a home there._x000D_ _x000D_ Jackie: If Love cannot live there, Hate works just as well.

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.

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

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

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