Quotes from The Man in the Brown Suit

“It is really a hard life. Men will not be nice to you if you are not good-looking, and women will not be nice to you if you are.”
― Agatha Christie, quote from The Man in the Brown Suit

“What good is money if it can't buy happiness?”
― Agatha Christie, quote from The Man in the Brown Suit

“A diary is useful for recording the idiosyncrasies of other people—but not one’s own.”
― Agatha Christie, quote from The Man in the Brown Suit

“I dare say it is good for one now and again to realize what an idiot one can be! But no one relishes the process.”
― Agatha Christie, quote from The Man in the Brown Suit

“I had the firm conviction that, if I went about looking for adventure, adventure would meet me halfway. It is a theory of mine that one always gets what one wants.”
― Agatha Christie, quote from The Man in the Brown Suit

“But there are many fools in the world. One praises God for their existence and keeps out of their way.”
― Agatha Christie, quote from The Man in the Brown Suit

“It was on the fourth day that the stewardess finally urged me up on deck. Under the impression that I should die quicker below, I had steadfastly refused to leave my bunk. She now tempted me with the advent of Madeira. Hope rose in my breast. I could leave the boat and go ashore and be a parlourmaid there. Anything for dry land.”
― Agatha Christie, quote from The Man in the Brown Suit

“Suzanne likes thrills, but she hates being uncomfortable.”
― Agatha Christie, quote from The Man in the Brown Suit

“You know I want you. You know that I’d give my soul to pick you up in my arms and keep you here, hidden away from the world, forever and ever.”
― Agatha Christie, quote from The Man in the Brown Suit

“Having adventures,” I replied. “Episode III of ‘The Perils of Pamela.’ ” I told her the whole story. She gave vent to a deep sigh when I finished. “Why do these things always happen to you?” she demanded plaintively. “Why does no one gag me and bind me hand and foot?” “You wouldn’t like it if they did,” I assured her. “To tell you the truth, I’m not nearly so keen on having adventures myself as I was. A little of that sort of thing goes a long way.”
― Agatha Christie, quote from The Man in the Brown Suit

“Guy Pagett is my secretary, a zealous, painstaking, hardworking fellow, admirable in every respect. I know no one who annoys me more. For a long time I have been racking my brains as to how to get rid of him. But you cannot very well dismiss a secretary because he prefers work to play, likes getting up early in the morning, and has positively no vices. The only amusing thing about the fellow is his face. He has the face of a fourteenth-century poisoner—the sort of man the Borgias got to do their odd jobs for them.”
― Agatha Christie, quote from The Man in the Brown Suit

“It was very like a dream. Like all dreamers, however, I could not let my dream alone. We poor humans are so anxious not to miss anything.”
― Agatha Christie, quote from The Man in the Brown Suit

“Several very suprising things have occurred. To begin with, I met Augustus Milray, the most perfect example of an old ass the present Government has produced. His manner oozed diplomatic secrecy as he drew me aside in the Club into a quiet corner.”
― Agatha Christie, quote from The Man in the Brown Suit

“I objected vigorously to this unsporting proposal. I recognized in it the disastrous effects of matrimony. How often have I not heard a perfectly intelligent female say, in the tone of one clinching an argument, “Edgar says—” And all the time you are perfectly aware that Edgar is a perfect fool. Suzanne, by reason of her married state, was yearning to lean upon some man or other.”
― Agatha Christie, quote from The Man in the Brown Suit

“A man who has shot lions in large quantities has an unfair advantage over other men.”
― Agatha Christie, quote from The Man in the Brown Suit

“أنت تعتقد أنك تعجب بالميزات الاخلاقية ولكن عندما تقع في الحب فأنت تعود إلى فطرتك البدائية حيث تكون القوة الجسدية هي المفضلة”
― Agatha Christie, quote from The Man in the Brown Suit

“We never seemed to have any money. His celebrity was not of the kind that brought in a cash return. Although he was a fellow of almost every important society and had rows of letters after his name, the general public scarcely knew of his existence, and his long-learned books, though adding signally to the sum total of human knowledge, had no attraction for the masses.”
― Agatha Christie, quote from The Man in the Brown Suit

“إن العشاق يتشاجرون دائماً لأنهم لا يفهمون بعضهم، وعندما يأتي الوقت الذي يفهمون فيه بعضهم فإنهم يفقدون حبهم”
― Agatha Christie, quote from The Man in the Brown Suit

“أتمنى لو كنا نستطيع أن نتأكد من أن الناس الذين يقتلون هم من يستحقون الموت، أقصد هؤلاء الذين يريدون القتال وليس فقط المساكين الذين يعيشون في المناطق التي يدور فيها القتال”
― Agatha Christie, quote from The Man in the Brown Suit

“She was a very good, kind woman. I could not have continued to live in the same house with her, but I did recognize her intrinsic worth.”
― Agatha Christie, quote from The Man in the Brown Suit

“The Beddingfeld girl was deep in conversation with the missionary parson, Chichester. Women always flutter round parsons.”
― Agatha Christie, quote from The Man in the Brown Suit

“I reflected a minute and then asked why he wanted to marry me. That seemed to fluster him a good deal, and he murmured that a wife was a great help to a general practitioner. The position seemed even more unromantic than before, and yet something in me urged towards its acceptance. Safety, that was what I was being offered. Safety—and a Comfortable Home. Thinking it over now, I believe I did the little man an injustice. He was honestly in love with me, but a mistaken delicacy prevented him from pressing his suit on those lines. Anyway, my love of romance rebelled.”
― Agatha Christie, quote from The Man in the Brown Suit

“He was tall and broad-shouldered, wore a dark overcoat and black boots, a bowler hat. He had a dark-pointed beard and gold-rimmed eyeglasses.” “Take away the overcoat, the beard and the eyeglasses, and there wouldn’t be much to know him by,” grumbled the inspector. “He could alter his appearance easily enough in five minutes if he wanted to—which he would do if he’s the swell pickpocket you suggest.” I had not intended to suggest anything of the kind. But from this moment I gave the inspector up as hopeless. “Nothing more you can tell us about him?” he demanded, as I rose to depart. “Yes,” I said. I seized my opportunity to fire a parting shot. “His head was markedly brachycephalic. He will not find it so easy to alter that.” I observed with pleasure that Inspector Meadows’s pen wavered. It was clear that he did not know how to spell brachycephalic.”
― Agatha Christie, quote from The Man in the Brown Suit

“He’s like all the rest of these people; they make inflammatory speeches of enormous length, solely for political purposes, and then wish they hadn’t.”
― Agatha Christie, quote from The Man in the Brown Suit

“It is really a very hard life. Men will not be nice to you if you are not good-looking, and women will not be nice to you if you are.”
― Agatha Christie, quote from The Man in the Brown Suit

“No, doctor, I'm going to London. If things happen anywhere, they happen in London.”
― Agatha Christie, quote from The Man in the Brown Suit

“Caroline is the lady who cooks for me. Incidentally she is the wife of my gardener. What kind of a wife she makes I do not know, but she is an excellent cook. James, on the other hand, is not a good gardener—but I support him in idleness and give him the lodge to live in solely on account of Caroline’s cooking.”
― Agatha Christie, quote from The Man in the Brown Suit

“Does nothing frighten you, Anne Beddingfeld?” “Oh, yes,” I said, with an assumption of coolness I was far from feeling. “Wasps, sarcastic women, very young men, cockroaches, and superior shop assistants.”
― Agatha Christie, quote from The Man in the Brown Suit

“dare say it is good for one now and again to realize what an idiot one can be! But nobody relishes the process.”
― Agatha Christie, quote from The Man in the Brown Suit

“My father, Professor Beddingfeld, was one of England’s greatest living authorities on Primitive Man. He really was a genius—everyone admits that. His mind dwelt in Palaeolithic times, and the inconvenience of life for him was that his body inhabited the modern world. Papa did not care for modern man—even Neolithic Man he despised as a mere herder of cattle, and he did not rise to enthusiasm until he reached the Mousterian period.”
― Agatha Christie, quote from The Man in the Brown Suit

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“I saw it myself. An endless succession of mongrels and malingerers, the laziest dropouts who fancied themselves explorers. He made his policy clear: he was not responsible for their food, their shelter, their safety, or their health. He didn't waste his time discouraging them because frankly there was no discouragement they could not withstand. All of the energy they could have put into their intelligence they had used to develop their tenacity. But what I quickly learned was that their tenacity was for going, not for staying. Once they were out on the trail they fell like flies. Some took a day, two days, others were gone in a matter of hours, and Dr. Rapp never stopped for them. He remained beautifully consistent: he was to work and he would continue to work. He would not ferry back the weak and the lame. They had chosen to get themselves in and they would simply have to figure the means to get themselves out. People were quick to accept these terms until they themselves were weak. Then they changed their tune entirely, then they said Dr. Rapp was heartless. They couldn't slander him as a scientist but they said no end of scurrilous things about him as a man. He hadn't rescued them! He hadn't been their father and mother! I will tell you, none of that troubled his sleep. If he had made them his responsibility, either by dissuading them from their ambitions or by bailing them out of their folly, the greatest botanist of our time would have been reduced to a babysitter. It would have been an incalculable blow to science, all in the name of saving the stupid.”
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“When you’re a child the world forbears you, allows you your flights of imagination, your feelings of specialness. But sooner or later the privileges are withdrawn, and all you’re left with is a stunned bitterness at the realisation that you’re just the same as everybody else.”
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