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• Agatha Christie

"Curious things, habits. People themselves never knew they had them. "Agatha Christie

"Never do anything yourself that others can do for you." Agatha Christie

"Where large sums of money are concerned, it is advisable to trust nobody." Agatha Christie

"The best time to plan a book is while you're doing the dishes." Agatha Christie

"If I was born once again, I would like to be a woman - always!"

"There is no greater mistake in life than seeing things or hearing them at the wrong time."

"Good advice is always certain to be ignored, but that's no reason not to give it."

"It is never good to entirely quit with work."

"People like it, but who can say why?" Agatha Christie asked why The Mousetrap had been so successful In a TV interview.

"I much disliked his first suggestion, which was to take about twenty years off Poirot's age, call him Beau Poirot and have lots of girls in love with him." Agatha Christie on a discussion with a playwright on the stageadaption of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

"An archaeologist is the best husband any woman can have: the older she gets, the more interested he is in her." Agatha Christie News report, March 9th 1954. Christie later denied this remark.

"One's always a little self-conscious over the murderer's first appearance. He must never come in too late; that's uninteresting for the reader at the end of the book. And the dénouement has to be worked out frightfully carefully."

"A child says 'Thank God for my good dinner.' What can I say at seventy-five? 'Thank God for my good life, and for all the love that has been given to me."

"The saddest thing in life and the hardest to live through, is the knowledge that there is someone you love very much whom you cannot save from suffering."

"But surely for everything you have to love you have to pay some price." Agatha Christie

"It is a curious thought, but it is only when you see people looking ridiculous that you realize just how much you love them. " Agatha Christie

"Oh dear, I never realized what a terrible lot of explaining one has to do in a murder! " Agatha Christie

"The happy people are failures because they are on such good terms with themselves they don't give a damn. "Agatha Christie

"The secret of getting ahead is getting started. " Agatha Christie

"One of the luckiest things that can happen to you in life is to have a happy chilhood. I had a very happy childhood."

"Never go back to a place where you have been happy. Until you do it remains alive for you. If you go back it will be destroyed."

"I am willing to believe that [those who kill] are made that way, that they are born with a disability, for which, perhaps, one should pity them; but even then, I think, not spare them."

"When I re-read those first [detective stories I wrote], I'm amazed at the number of servants drifting about. And nobody is really doing any work, they're always having tea on the lawn."

"...any moment before the end might be the important one. This I believe."

"One problem is that the interruptions are generally far more enjoyable than writing, and once you've stopped, it's exceedingly difficult to get started again."

"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 am like a sausage machine. As soon as [I finish a novel] and cut off the string, I have to think of the next one."

"It is ridiculous to set a detective story in New York City. New York City is itself a detective story."

"Very few people really stimulate you with the things they say. And those are usually men. Men have much better brains than women, don't you think? So much more originality."

"I don't think necessity is the mother of invention. Invention, in my opinion, arises directly from idleness, possibly also from laziness--to save oneself trouble."

"I would like it to be said that I was a good writer of detective and thriller stories."