The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side

Why shouldn't I hate her? She did the worst thing to me that anyone can do to anyone else. Let them believe that they're loved and wanted and then show them that it's all a sham.

One never quite allows for the moron in our midst.

Heather Badcock meant no harm. She never did mean harm, but there is no doubt that people like Heather Badcock (and like my old friend Alison Wilde), are capable of doing a lot of harm because they lack - not kindness, they have kindness - but any real consideration for the way their actions may affect other people. She though always of what an action meant to her, never sparing a thought to what it might mean to somebody else.

Hemlock in the cocktails, wasn't it? Something of that kind.

She had a great power of love and hate but no stability. That’s what’s so sad for anyone, to be born with no stability.

Murder develops. Yes, like a photograph, isn’t it?” “It’s very much like photography really,” said Dermot. “Quite a good comparison of yours.

Do you remember the Lady of Shalott? The mirror crack’d from side to side: ‘The doom has come upon me,’ cried the Lady of Shalott. Well, that’s what she looked like. People laugh at Tennyson nowadays, but the Lady of Shalott always thrilled me when I was young and it still does.

Such a sweet letter from Lady Conway... You remember my telling you about her? Her memory's bad. Can't recognize her relations always and tells them to go away." "That might be shrewdness really," said Miss Marple, "rather than a loss of memory.

Evidence of identification was given by the husband, and the only other evidence was medical. Heather Badcock had died as a result of four grains of hy-ethyl-dexyl-barbo-quinde-lorytate, or, let us be frank, some such name.

Miss Marple made a ladylike noise of vexation like a cat sneezing to indicate profound disgust.

She couldn't let the past go and she could never see the future as it really was, only as she imagined it to be.

One has to dare if one wants to get anywhere,' said Mrs. Bantry.

The trouble with her is that either she thinks that at last she's got to that spot or place or that moment in her life where everything's like a fairy tale come true, that nothing can go wrong, that she'll never be unhappy again; or else she's down in the dumps, a woman whose life is ruined, who's never known love and happiness and who never will again.

In my experience, bossy women seldom get themselves murdered. I can't think why not. When you come to think of it, it's rather a pity.

Miss Marple made the kind of noise that would once have been written down as 'tut-tut'.

Old Laycock then displayed his particular genius which was that of enthusiastic agreement and subsequent lack of performance.

Murder develops. Yes, like a photograph, isn't it?

If you look into somebody's soul by accident, you feel a bit embarrassed about cashing in.