The Thirteen Problems

Sitting here with one's knitting, one just sees the facts. -"The Blood-Stained Pavement

Human nature is always interesting... And it's curious to see how certain types always tend to act in exactly the same way." - Miss Marple, The Herb of Death, Pg. 167

Well, of course, it was not any of my business but you get very queer glimpses of life sometimes, and you can't help speculating about them.

Of course,' said Miss Marple, 'a lot of people are stupid. And stupid people get found out, whatever they do. But there are quite a number of people who aren't stupid, and one shudders to think of what they might accomplish unless they had very strongly rooted principles.

Human nature is always interesting, Sir Henry. And it's curious to see how certain types always tend to act in exactly the same way.

I’ve no patience with modern humanitarian scruples about capital punishment.

What I do realise is that women must stick together -- one should, in an emergency, stand by one's own sex.

This is real life; and real life stops just where it chooses.

Miss Marple,' said Sir Henry, "you frighten me. I hope you will never wish to remove me. Your plans would be too good.

Now, I dare say you modern young people will laugh, but when I am in really bad trouble I always say a little prayer to myself—anywhere, when I am walking along the street, or at a bazaar. And I always get an answer. It may be some trifling thing, apparently quite unconnected with the subject, but there it is. I had that text pinned over my bed when I was a little girl: Ask and you shall receive.

Everybody is very much alike, really. But fortunately, perhaps, they don’t realize it.

I like being a cat in my home circle," said Mrs. Bantry. "I don't much like women anyway, and you know it. I like men and flowers.” "Excellent taste," said Sir Henry. "Especially in putting men first.

Has it ever occurred to you,' the old lady went on, 'how much we go by what is called, I believe, the context? There is a place on Dartmoor called Grey Wethers. If you were talking to a farmer there and mentioned Grey Wethers, he would probably conclude that you were speaking of these stone circles, yet it is possible that you might be speaking of the atmosphere; and in the same way, if you were meaning the stone circles, an outsider, hearing a fragment of the conversation, might think you meant the weather. So when we repeat a conversation, we don't, as a rule, repeat the actual words; we put in some other words that seem to us to mean exactly the same thing.

Of course it is wicked,' I said briskly. 'There is nothing that you can tell me about people's minds that would astonish or surprise me.

Aunt Jane,' said Raymond, looking at her curiously, 'how do you do it? You have lived such a peaceful life and yet nothing seems to surprise you.' 'I always find one thing very like another in this world,' said Miss Marple.

I have had too much experience of life to believe in the infallibility of doctors. Some of them are clever men and some of them are not, and half the time the best of them don't know what is the matter with you.