“The impossible could not have happened, therefore the impossible must be possible in spite of appearances.”
“Very few of us are what we seem.”
“The truth, however ugly in itself, is always curious and beautiful to seekers after it.”
“Instinct is a marvelous thing. It can neither be explained nor ignored.”
“Evil is not something superhuman, it’s something less than human.”
“It is a curious thought, but it is only when you see people looking ridiculous that you realize just how much you love them.”
“The best time to plan a book is while you’re doing the dishes.”
“An archaeologist is the best husband any woman can have; the older she gets, the more interested he is in her.”
“Every murderer is probably somebody’s old friend.”
“A mother’s love for her child is like nothing else in the world. It knows no law, no pity. It dares all things and crushes down remorselessly all that stands in its path.”
“I have enjoyed greatly the second blooming that comes when you finish the life of the emotions and of personal relations; and suddenly find—at the age of fifty, say—that a whole new life has opened before you.”
“The young people think the old people are fools; but the old people know the young people are fools!”
“One doesn’t recognize the really important moments in one’s life until it’s too late.”
“The simplest explanation is always the most likely.”
“Crime is terribly revealing. Try and vary your methods as you will, your tastes, your habits, your attitude of mind, and your soul is revealed by your actions.”
“Never do anything yourself that others can do for you.”
“Everyone is a potential murderer. In everyone there arises from time to time the wish to kill.”
“It is ridiculous to set a detective story in New York City. New York City is itself a detective story.”
“Curious things, habits. People themselves never knew they had them.”
“One is left with the horrible feeling now that war settles nothing; that to win a war is as disastrous as to lose one.”
“There is no detective in England equal to a spinster lady of uncertain age with plenty of time on her hands.”
“To every problem, there is a most simple solution.”
“If one sticks too rigidly to one’s principles, one would hardly see anybody.”
“Words, mademoiselle, are only the outer clothing of ideas.”
“What good is money if it can’t buy happiness?”
“The happy people are failures because they are on such good terms with themselves they don’t give a damn.”
“It is completely unimportant. That is why it is so interesting.”
“I suppose it is because nearly all children go to school nowadays and have things arranged for them that they seem so forlornly unable to produce their own ideas.”
“Where large sums of money are concerned, it is advisable to trust nobody.”
“Dogs are wise. They crawl away into a quiet corner and lick their wounds and do not rejoin the world until they are whole once more.”
“The past is the father of the present.”
“Never tell all you know—not even to the person you know best.”
“There’s too much tendency to attribute to God the evils that man does of his own free will.”
“One of the luckiest things that can happen to you in life is, I think, to have a happy childhood.”
“Time is the best killer.”
“Any woman can fool a man if she wants to and if he’s in love with her.”
“Good advice is always certain to be ignored, but that’s no reason not to give it.”
“You gave too much rein to your imagination. Imagination is a good servant, and a bad master.”
“Every story has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Not necessarily in that order.”
“Truth, however bitter, can be accepted, and woven into a design for living.”
“I specialize in murders of quiet, domestic interest.”
“Nothing turns out quite in the way you thought it would when you’re setting out to write a book.”
“Too much mercy… often resulted in further crimes which were fatal to innocent victims who need not have been victims if justice had been put first and mercy second.”
“You can only really get under anybody’s skin if you are married to them.”
“The secret of getting ahead is getting started.”
“What they said to me now in my later years was, ‘You were always ahead of your time.’”
“It is a great mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.”
“As life goes on, it becomes tiring to keep on trying new things and people and places.”
“The truth, however ugly in itself, is always curious and beautiful to seekers after it.”
“The impossible could not have happened, therefore the impossible must be possible in spite of appearances.”