Agatha Christie · 322 pages
Rating: (239.9K votes)
“The impossible could not have happened, therefore the impossible must be possible in spite of appearances.”
― Agatha Christie, quote from Murder on the Orient Express
“If you confront anyone who has lied with the truth, he will usually admit it - often out of sheer surprise. It is only necessary to guess right to produce your effect.”
― Agatha Christie, quote from Murder on the Orient Express
“But I know human nature, my friend, and I tell you that, suddenly confronted with the possibility of being tried for murder, the most innocent person will lose his head and do the most absurd things.”
― Agatha Christie, quote from Murder on the Orient Express
“You've a pretty good nerve," said Ratchett. "Will twenty thousand dollars tempt you?"
It will not."
If you're holding out for more, you won't get it. I know what a thing's worth to me."
I, also M. Ratchett."
What's wrong with my proposition?"
Poirot rose. "If you will forgive me for being personal - I do not like your face, M. Ratchett," he said.”
― Agatha Christie, quote from Murder on the Orient Express
“At the small table, sitting very upright, was one of the ugliest old ladies he had ever seen. It was an ugliness of distinction - it fascinated rather than repelled.”
― Agatha Christie, quote from Murder on the Orient Express
“What's wrong with my proposition?" Poirot rose. "If you will forgive me for being personal-I do not like your face, M. Ratchett.”
― Agatha Christie, quote from Murder on the Orient Express
“I like to see an angry Englishman," said Poirot. "They are very amusing. The more emotional they feel the less command they have of language.”
― Agatha Christie, quote from Murder on the Orient Express
“I am not one to rely upon the expert procedure. It is the psychology I seek, not the fingerprint or the cigarette ash.”
― Agatha Christie, quote from Murder on the Orient Express
“The body—the cage—is everything of the most respectable—but through the bars, the wild animal looks out.”
― Agatha Christie, quote from Murder on the Orient Express
“You are the patient one, Mademoiselle,' said Poirot to Miss Debenham.
She shrugged her shoulders slightly. 'What else can one do?'
You are a philosopher, Mademoiselle.'
That implies a detached attitude. I think my attitude is more selfish. I have learned to save myself useless emotion.”
― Agatha Christie, quote from Murder on the Orient Express
“Some of us, in the words of the divine Greta Garbo, want to be alone.”
― Agatha Christie, quote from Murder on the Orient Express
“Then there are some minor points that strike me as suggestive - for instance, the position of Mrs. Hubbard's sponge bag, the name of Mrs. Armstrong's mother, the detective methods of Mr. Hardman, the suggestion of Mr. MacQueen that Ratchett himself destroyed the charred note we found, Princess Dragomiroff's Christian name, and a grease spot on a Hungarian passport.”
― Agatha Christie, quote from Murder on the Orient Express
“All around us are people, of all classes, of all nationalities, of all ages. For three days these people, these strangers to one another, are brought together. They sleep and eat under one roof, they cannot get away from each other. At the end of three days they part, they go their several ways, never, perhaps, to see each other again.”
― Agatha Christie, quote from Murder on the Orient Express
“As you yourself have said, what other explanation can there be?'
Poirot stared straight ahead of him. 'That is what I ask myself,' he said. 'That is what I never cease to ask myself.”
― Agatha Christie, quote from Murder on the Orient Express
“How fast you go. You arrive at a conclusion much sooner than I would permit myself to do.”
― Agatha Christie, quote from Murder on the Orient Express
“I believe, Messieurs, in loyalty---to one's friends and one's family and one's caste.”
― Agatha Christie, quote from Murder on the Orient Express
“I have learned to save myself useless emotion.”
― Agatha Christie, quote from Murder on the Orient Express
“What's wrong with my proposition?"
Poirot rose. "If you will forgive me for being personal - I do not like your face.”
― Agatha Christie, quote from Murder on the Orient Express
“Vi pripadate Ligi naroda?
-Ja pripadam cijelom svijetu, madame, reče Poirot dramatično.”
― Agatha Christie, quote from Murder on the Orient Express
“Poirot's eyes opened. "That is great ferocity," he said.
"It is a woman," said the chef de train, speaking for the first time. "Depend upon it, it was a woman. Only a woman would stab like that."
Dr. Constantine screwed up his face thoughtfully. "She must have been a very strong woman," he said. "It is not my desire to speak technically-that is only confusing; but I can assure you that two of the blows were delivered with such forces as to drive them through hard belts of bone and muscle."
"It was clearly not a scientific crime," said Poirot.
"It was most unscientific," returned Dr. Constantine.
"The blows seem to have been delivered haphazard and at random. Some have glanced off, doing hardly any damage. It is as though somebody had shut his eyes and then in a frenzy struck blindly again and again."
"C'est une femme," said the chef de train again. "Women are like that. When they are enraged they have great strength." He nodded so sagely that everyone suspected a personal experience of his own.”
― Agatha Christie, quote from Murder on the Orient Express
“Because, you see, if the man were an invention—a fabrication—how much easier to make him disappear!”
― Agatha Christie, quote from Murder on the Orient Express
“The happiness of one man and one woman is the greatest thing in all the world.”
― Agatha Christie, quote from Murder on the Orient Express
“The impossible cannot have happened, therefore the impossible must be possible in spite of appearances.”
― Agatha Christie, quote from Murder on the Orient Express
“At a small table, sitting very upright, was one of the ugliest old ladies he had ever seen. It was an ugliness of distinction- it fascinated rather than repelled. She sat very upright. Round her neck was a collar of very large pearls which, improbable though it seemed, were real. Her hands were covered with rings. Her sable coat was pushed back on her shoulders. A very small and expensive black toque was hideously unbecoming to the yellow, toad-like face beneath it.”
― Agatha Christie, quote from Murder on the Orient Express
“About Miss Debenham," he said rather awkwardly. "You can take it from me that she's all right. She's a pukka sahib.
"What," asked Dr. Constantine with interest, "does a pukka sahib mean?"
"It means," said Poirot, "that Miss Debenham's father and brothers were at the same kind of school as Colonel Arbuthnot was."
"Oh!" said Dr. Constantine, disappointed. "Then it has nothing to do with the crime at all."
"Exactly," said Poirot.”
― Agatha Christie, quote from Murder on the Orient Express
“In fact,' said Poirot, 'she stabbed him in the dark, not realising that he was dead already, but somehow deduced that he had a watch in his pyjama pocket, took it out, put back the hands blindly and gave it the requisite dent.”
― Agatha Christie, quote from Murder on the Orient Express
“Lo imposible no puede haber sucedido; por tanto, lo imposible tiene que ser posible, a pesar de las apariencias.”
― Agatha Christie, quote from Murder on the Orient Express
“Are you really a detective, then?” “At your service, Madame.” “I thought there were no detectives on the train when it passed through Yugo-Slavia—not until one got to Italy.” “I am not a Yugo-Slavian detective, Madame. I am an international detective.” “You belong to the League of Nations?” “I belong to the world, Madame,” said Poirot dramatically.”
― Agatha Christie, quote from Murder on the Orient Express
“In the words of a best seller, ‘You’ve nothing on me.”
― Agatha Christie, quote from Murder on the Orient Express
“He wanted to laugh. Only, the sound wouldn't come out. He couldn't summon even a wry humor, not anymore. Light! I can't keep this up. My eyes see as if in a fog, my hand is burned away, and the old wounds in my side rip open if I do anything more strenuous than breathe. I'm dry, like an overused well. I need to finish my work here and get to Shayol Ghul.
Otherwise, there won't be anything left of me for the Dark One to kill.
That wasn't a thought to cause laughter; it was one to cause despair. But Rand did not weep, for tears could not come from steel.
For the moment, Lews Therin's cries seemed enough for both of them.”
― Robert Jordan, quote from The Gathering Storm
“Jacob Kowalski: I'm sure people like you,too.
Newt Scamander: No, not really. I'm annoying.”
― Newt Scamander, quote from Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
“The three rules of the Librarians of Time and Space are: 1) Silence; 2) Books must be returned no later than the last date shown; and 3) Do not interfere with the nature of causality.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Guards! Guards!
“I sucked on a blade of grass and watched the millwheel turn. I was lying on my stomach on the stream's opposite bank, my head propped in my hands. There was a tiny rainbow in the mist above the froth and boil at the foot of the waterfall, and an occasional droplet found its way to me. The steady splashing and the sound of the wheel drowned out all other noises in the wood. The mill was deserted today, and I contemplated it because I had not seen its like in ages. Watching the wheel and listening to the water were more than just relaxing. It was somewhat hypnotic. …
My head nodding with each creak of the wheel, I forced everything else from my mind and set about remembering the necessary texture of the sand, its coloration, the temperature, the winds, the touch of salt in the air, the clouds...
I slept then and I dreamed, but not of the place that I sought.
I regarded a big roulette wheel, and we were all of us on it-my brothers, my sisters, myself, and others whom I knew or had known-rising and falling, each with his allotted section. We were all shouting for it to stop for us and wailing as we passed the top and headed down once more. The wheel had begun to slow and I was on the rise. A fair-haired youth hung upside down before me, shouting pleas and warnings that were drowned in the cacophony of voices. His face darkened, writhed, became a horrible thing to behold, and I slashed at the cord that bound his ankle and he fell from sight. The wheel slowed even more as I neared the top, and I saw Lorraine then. She was gesturing, beckoning frantically, and calling my name. I leaned toward her, seeing her clearly, wanting her, wanting to help her. But as the wheel continued its turning she passed from my sight. “Corwin!”
I tried to ignore her cry, for I was almost to the top. It came again, but I tensed myself and prepared to spring upward. If it did not stop for me, I was going to try gimmicking the damned thing, even though falling off would mean my total ruin. I readied myself for the leap. Another click... “Corwin!”
It receded, returned, faded, and I was looking toward the water wheel again with my name echoing in my ears and mingling, merging, fading into the sound of the stream.
…
It plunged for over a thousand feet: a mighty cataract that smote the gray river like an anvil. The currents were rapid and strong, bearing bubbles and flecks of foam a great distance before they finally dissolved. Across from us, perhaps half a mile distant, partly screened by rainbow and mist, like an island slapped by a Titan, a gigantic wheel slowly rotated, ponderous and gleaming. High overhead, enormous birds rode like drifting crucifixes the currents of the air.
We stood there for a fairly long while. Conversation was impossible, which was just as well. After a time, when she turned from it to look at me, narrow-eyed, speculative, I nodded and gestured with my eyes toward the wood. Turning then, we made our way back in the direction from which we had come.
Our return was the same process in reverse, and I managed it with greater ease. When conversation became possible once more, Dara still kept her silence, apparently realizing by then that I was a part of the process of change going on around us.
It was not until we stood beside our own stream once more, watching the small mill wheel in its turning, that she spoke.”
― Roger Zelazny, quote from The Great Book of Amber
“this is one of my absolute favourite quotes its from the evernight series (stargazer)
charity to Balthazar
You remind me of too much. you remind me of what it felt like to be alive, to think of sunlight as something you could enjoy instead of something you could bare, to breath and have it change you, refresh you, awaken you, instead of just churning on and on some old useless habit that taunts you with what you use to be, to sigh and feel relief, to cry and let your sadness pass, instead of having it all bottled up inside of you forever and ever until you don't know who you are any more.”
― Claudia Gray, quote from Stargazer
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