Agatha Christie · 351 pages
Rating: (24.9K votes)
“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.”
“Jungeltelegrafen er stort sett som før, innrømmet fru Bantry.”
“Man må våge viss man vil noen steder, sa fru Bantry.”
“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.”
“remember that there's always another way of seeing things: that's the beginning of wisdom.”
“It seemed I'd always been chasing after something, anything that moved -a car, a bird, a blowing leaf -anything that might lead me into some more lit place, some unknown land downriver. I had not even the vaguest notion of the broken world I was living in, what society could do with you.”
“I'm breathing . . . Are you breathing too? . . . It's nice, isn't it? It isn't difficult to keep alive, friends just don't -make trouble-or if you must make trouble, make the sort of trouble that's expected. Well, I don't need to tell you that. Good night. If we should bump into one another, recognize me”
“I have measured out my life in Arsenal fixtures, and any event of any significance has a footballing shadow.”
“...και οι δυο λένε Σ'αγαπώ για να διώξουν τον φόβο, για να πεισθούν από τα λόγια για τα έργα, για να βεβαιωθούν ότι έχει επέλθει η πολυπόθητη κατάσταση, για να ξεγελάσουν τους εαυτούς τους με την ιδέα ότι δεν έχει παρέλθει ακόμη. Πρέπει να φυλαγόμαστε από τέτοιες χρήσεις. Το Σ'αγαπώ δεν πρέπει να βγαίνει στον κόσμο, να γίνεται νόμισμα, εμπορεύσιμη μετοχή, να μας αποφέρει κέρδη.”
BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.
Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.