Any medical man who predicts exactly when a patient will die, or exactly how long he will live, is bound to make a fool of himself. The human factor is always incalculable. The weak have often unexpected powers of resistance, the strong sometimes succumb.
Is there ever any particular spot where one can put one's finger and say, "It all began that day, at such a time and such a place, with such an incident?
All I needed was a steady table and a typewriter...a marble-topped bedroom washstand table made a good place; the dining-room table between meals was also suitable.
But no artist, I now realize, can be satisfied with art alone. There is a natural craving for recognition which cannot be gain-said.
The bereaved had never any doubt about their dear ones' wishes and those wishes usually squared with their own inclinations.
You are the patient one, Mademoiselle,' said Poirot to Miss Debenham. She shrugged her shoulders slightly. 'What else can one do?' You are a philosopher, Mademoiselle.' That implies a detached attitude. I think my attitude is more selfish. I have learned to save myself useless emotion.
Hate doesn't last. Love does.
The steamship whose machinery is broken may be brought into port and made fast to the dock. She is safe, but not sound. Repairs may last a long time. Christ designs to make us both safe and sound. Justification gives the first - safety; sanctification gives us the second - soundness.
There's no agony like [getting started]. You sit in a room, biting pencils, looking at a typewriter, walking about, or casting yourself down on a sofa, feeling you want to cry your head off.
I, myself, was always recognized . . . as the “slow one” in the family. It was quite true, and I knew it and accepted it. Writing and spelling were always terribly difficult for me. My letters were without originality. I was . . . an extraordinarily bad speller and have remained so until this day.
You know, Emily was a selfish old woman in her way. She was very generous, but she always wanted a return. She never let people forget what she had done for them - and, that way she missed love.
Everyone likes talking about himself. - Hercule Poirot
... evil was, perhaps, necessarily always more impressive than good.
Things go entirely differently from the way you planned them.
I have wanted . . . to commit a murder myself. I recognized this as the desire of the artist to express himself! . . . But-incongruous as it may seem to some-I was restrained and hampered by my innate sense of justice. The innocent must not suffer.
And so could you know it if you would only use the brains the good God has given you. Sometimes I really am tempted to believe that by inadvertence, He passed you by.
The urge to write one's autobiography, so I have been told, overtakes everyone sooner or later.
There are more important things than finding the murderer. And justice is a fine word, but it is sometimes difficult to say exactly what one means by it. In my opinion, the important thing is to clear the innocent. - Hercule Poirot
What an absurdity to go and bury oneself in South America, where they are always having revolutions.
Three months seems to me quite a reasonable time to complete a book, if one can get right down to it.
Juliet singles out Romeo. Desdemona claims Othello. They have no doubts, the young, no fear, no pride.
What's wrong with my proposition?" Poirot rose. "If you will forgive me for being personal-I do not like your face, M. Ratchett.
No sign, so far, of anything sinister—but I live in hope.
Nobody believes in magicians any more, nobody believes that anyone can come along and wave a wand and turn you into a frog. But if you read in the paper that by injecting certain glands scientists can alter your vital tissues and you'll develop froglike characteristics, well, everybody would believe that.
Best of an island is once you get there - you can't go any farther...you've come to the end of things.
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