“Go away where you're loved and taken care of and looked after.”

“… one can never go back, that one should not ever try to go back – that the essence of life is going forward. Life is really a One Way Street.”

“He felt lost without his hatred–lost and afraid.

“Anybody who can belive six impossible things before breakfast wins hands down in this game.”

“Conversations are always dangerous if you have something to hide, " said Miss Marple”

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

“To see ourselves as others see us!”

“A man travels fastest who travels alone.”

“There's no doubt about what the man's profession has been. He's a retired hairdresser. Look at that moustache of his.”

“Mr. Beresford put down the Daily Mail, which he was reading, and applauded with somewhat unnecessary vigour. He was politely requested by his colleague not to be an ass.”

“I 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.”

“With women, love always comes first.”

“Every murderer is probably somebody’s old friend,” observed Poirot philosophically. “You cannot mix up sentiment and reason.”

“Well, of course, it was not any of my business but you get very queer glimpses of life sometimes, and you can't help speculating about them.”

“There is, as Miss Marple would say, a lot of human nature in all of us.”

“In fact the marriage has been arranged by heaven and Hercule Poirot. All I have to do is to compound a felony.”

“always bear in mind that the person who speaks may be lying”

“Women, however charming, have this disadvantage: they distract the mind from food!”

“That's where all the trouble in life comes from. Thinking.”

“You must always be polite to people whose position forbids them to be rude to you.”

“Let us think only of the good days that are to come.”

“Poison has a certain appeal … It has not the crudeness of the revolver bullet or the blunt weapon.”

“People in the dark are quite different, aren’t they?”

“The little grey cells, my friend, the little grey cells! They told me.”

“I know he'll probably always be like it, but I love him. I may be able to help him and I may not. But I'll take that risk.”

“Nothing, I believe, is so full of life under the microscope as a drop of water from a stagnant pool.”

“There 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.”

“...the real tragedy of life was that you got what you wanted...”

“In an English village, you turn over a stone and have no idea what will crawl out."

“...Murder, I have often noticed, is a great matchmaker.”

“You're a man milliner, Poirot. I never notice what people have on."

“She'd never stopped for a moment wanting me to be different but her wishes were never going to come true.”

“It is fundamentals that matter --- not the trappings. (Alice Cunningham)”

“Of course, if you’ve made up your mind about it, you’ll find an answer to everything.”

“Of course, if you’ve made up your mind about it, you’ll find an answer to everything.”

“Young men are sadly degenerate nowadays.”

“Things are simple as a rule”

“You arouse my gastronomical juices, madame.”

“If suicide is your idea of escape from trouble then it doesn't very much matter what the trouble is.”

What she was finding also was how one book led to another, doors kept opening wherever she turned and the days weren't long enough for the reading she wanted to do.

A book is a device to ignite the imagination.

Books are not about passing time. They're about other lives. Other worlds. Far from wanting time to pass, one just wishes one had more of it. If one wanted to pass the time one could go to New Zealand.

You don't put your life into your books, you find it there.

We started off trying to set up a small anarchist community, but people wouldn't obey the rules.

How do I define history? It's just one fucking thing after another

The days weren't long enough for the reading she wanted to do.

Above literature?' said the Queen. 'Who is above literature? You might as well say one was above humanity.

Sometimes there is no next time, no time-outs, no second chances. Sometimes it’s now or never.

History is a commentary on the various and continuing incapabilities of men. What is history? History is women following behind with the bucket.

One of the hardest things for boys to learn is that a teacher is human. One of the hardest things for a teacher to learn is not to try and tell them.