Quotes from Death Comes as the End

Agatha Christie ·  277 pages

Rating: (12.4K votes)


“Courage is the resolution to face the unforeseen.”
― Agatha Christie, quote from Death Comes as the End


“Handsome, strong, gay ... She felt again the thro and lilt of her blood. She had loved Kameni in that moment. She loved him now. Kameni could take the place that Khay had held in her life.
She thought: 'We shall be happy together - yes, we shall be happy. We shall live together and take pleasure in each other and we shall have strong, handsome children. There will be busy days full of work ... and days of pleasure when we sail on the River...Life will be again as I knew it with Khay...What could I ask more than that? What do I want more than that?'
And slowly, very slowly indeed, she turned her face towards Hori. It was as though, silently, she asked him a question.
As though he understood her, he answered:
'When you were a child, I loved you. I loved your grave face and the confidence with which you came to me, asking me to mend your broken toys. And then, after eight years' absence, you came again and sat here, and brought me the thoughts that were in your mind. And your mind, Renisenb, is not like the minds of the rest of your family. It does not turn in upon itself, seeking to encase itself in narrow walls. Your mind is like my mind, it looks over the River, seeing a world of changes, of new ideas - seeing a world where all things are possible to those with courage and vision...'
She broke off, unable to find words to frame her struggling thoughts. What life would be with Hori, she did not know. In spite of his gentleness, in spite of his love for her, he would remain in some respects incalculable and incomprehensible. They would share moments of great beauty and richness together - but what of their common daily life?
(...)
I have made my choice, Hori. I will share my life with you for good or evil, until death comes...
With his arms round her, with the sudden new sweetness of his face against hers, she was filled with an exultant richness of living.”
― Agatha Christie, quote from Death Comes as the End


“A trifle, a little, the likeness of a dream. And death comes as the end.”
― Agatha Christie, quote from Death Comes as the End


“Let us think only of the good days that are to come.”
― Agatha Christie, quote from Death Comes as the End


“It's as easy to utter lies as truth”
― Agatha Christie, quote from Death Comes as the End



“You are lucky, Renisenb. You have found the happiness that is inside everybody's own heart. To most women, happiness means coming and going, busied over small affairs. It is care for one's children and laughter and conversation and quarrels with other women and alternate love and anger with a man. It is made up of small things strung together like beads on a string.”
― Agatha Christie, quote from Death Comes as the End


“Proof must be solid break walls of facts.”
― Agatha Christie, quote from Death Comes as the End


“Well, 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 from Death Comes as the End


“You are not the happy, unthinking child you have always appeared to be, accepting everything at its face value. You are not just one of the women of the household. You are Renisenb who wants to think for herself, who wonders about other people.”
― Agatha Christie, quote from Death Comes as the End


“Sometimes what you think is an end is only a beginning. And that wouldn't do at all.”
― Agatha Christie, quote from Death Comes as the End



“It can happen that if anyone is talking to a person they know cannot see well, they are careless. They permit themselves an expression of face that on other occasions they would not allow.”
― Agatha Christie, quote from Death Comes as the End


“Who can tell? It may be that there must always be growth - and that if one does not grow kinder and wiser and greater, then the growth must be the other way, fostering the evil things. Or it may be that the life they all led was too shut in, too folded back upon itself - without breadth or vision. Or it may be that, like a disease of crops, it is contagious, that first one and then another is sickened.”
― Agatha Christie, quote from Death Comes as the End


“Those words of hers had meant nothing - you could not dismiss [however] a human being so easily.”
― Agatha Christie, quote from Death Comes as the End


“That is the word of reality - need.”
― Agatha Christie, quote from Death Comes as the End


“But it is not always the people who say most who do most.”
― Agatha Christie, quote from Death Comes as the End



“All life is a jest, Imhotep - and it is death who laughs last. Do you not hear it at every feast? Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow you die.”
― Agatha Christie, quote from Death Comes as the End


“Is it so unusual for a man to bring home a concubine?" "Not at all unusual. Men are usually fools.”
― Agatha Christie, quote from Death Comes as the End


“But remember this: Men are made fools by the gleaming limbs of women, and lo, in a minute they are become discoloured cornelians. . . Her voice deepened as she quoted: "A trifle, a little, the likeness of a dream, and death comes as the end. . . .”
― Agatha Christie, quote from Death Comes as the End


“It is the kind of thing that happens to you when you are stupid," said Esa. "Things go entirely differently from the way you planned them.”
― Agatha Christie, quote from Death Comes as the End


“Although everyone knows death comes in the end, you have this stupid mind which keeps on saying, 'But I won't die today . . .' right up to the moment of death!”
― Agatha Christie, quote from Death Comes as the End



“Life was not a matter of safety— it must be hazarded to win the game.”
― Agatha Christie, quote from Death Comes as the End


“The only clue to what is in people's minds is in their behavior. If a man behaves strangely, oddly, is not himself--

Then you suspect him?

No. That is just what I mean. A man whose mind is evil and whose intentions are evil is conscious of that fact and he knows that he must conceal it all costs. He dare not, therefore, afford any unusual behavior.”
― Agatha Christie, quote from Death Comes as the End


About the author

Agatha Christie
Born place: in Torquay, Devon, England, The United Kingdom
Born date September 15, 1890
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