Most successes are unhappy. That's why they are successes - they have to reassure themselves about themselves by achieving something that the world will notice.

Every murderer is probably somebody's old friend.

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

I like living. I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow, but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing.

There is nothing more thrilling in this world, I think, than having a child that is yours, and yet is mysteriously a stranger.

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

One doesn't recognize the really important moments in one's life until it's too late.

I've always believed in writing without a collaborator, because where two people are writing the same book, each believes he gets all the worry and only half the royalties.

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

The secret of getting ahead is getting started.

Evil is not something superhuman, it's something less than human.

I specialize in murders of quiet, domestic interest.

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.

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.

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

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

I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow, but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing.

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.

One of the luckiest things that can happen to you in life is, I think, to have a happy childhood.

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

An archaeologist is the best husband a woman can have. The older she gets the more interested he is in her.

I married an archaeologist because the older I grow, the more he appreciates me.

Very few of us are what we seem.

I live now on borrowed time, waiting in the anteroom for the summons that will inevitably come. And then - I go on to the next thing, whatever it is. One doesn't, luckily, have to bother about that.

The popular idea that a child forgets easily is not an accurate one. Many people go right through life in the grip of an idea which has been impressed on them in very tender years.

If one sticks too rigidly to one's principles, one would hardly see anybody.

There's too much tendency to attribute to God the evils that man does of his own free will.

Most successes are unhappy. That's why they are successes - they have to reassure themselves about themselves by achieving something that the world will notice.

Any woman can fool a man if she wants to and if he's in love with her.

Everything that has existed, lingers in the Eternity.

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

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.

These little grey cells. It is up to them.

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

A mother's love for her child is like nothing else in the world. It knows no aw, no pity, it dares all things and crushes down remorselessly all that stands in its path.

A mother's love for her child is like nothing else in the world. It knows no aw no pity it dares all things and crushes down remorselessly all that stands in its path.

... one may live in a big house and yet have no comfort.

Bad temper is its own safety valve. He who can bark does not bite.

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.

Curious things habits. People themselves never knew they had them.

Theres nothing so dangerous for anyone who has something to hide as conversation.

Desperate ills need desperate remedies.

Unless you are good at guessing it is not much use being a detective.

When engaged in eating the brain should be the servant of the stomach.

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.

The human face is after all nothing more nor less than a mask.

The first time you do a thing is always exciting.

Coffee in England always tastes like a chemistry experiment.