Sunday, January 24, 2010

The Worst

Subject:  Believing the Worst 
Quote:  “You’ve always been a sweet innocent looking creature, Jane, and all the time underneath nothing has ever surprised you, you always believe the worst.”
            “The worst is so often true,” murmured Miss Marple.
Character:  Mrs. Ruth Van Rydock and Miss Jane Marple
Chapter/Story:  1
Book Title/Copyright:  Murder With Mirrors (They Do It With Mirrors), 1952


Subject:  Thinking the Worst
Quote:  “Always think the worst, eh?” he asked.
            It seemed a curious doctrine to be proceeding from this charming and fragile-looking old lady.
            Oh, yes,” said Miss Marple fervently.  “I always believe the worst.  What is so sad is that one is usually justified in doing so.”
Character:  Inspector Neele and Miss Jane Marple
Chapter/Story:  24--i
Book Title/Copyright:  A Pocket Full of Rye, 1954

World Order

Subject:  World Order
Quote:  “Why do you decry the world we live in?  There are good people in it.  Isn’t muddle a better breeding ground for kindliness and individuality than a world order that’s imposed, a world order that may be right today and wrong tomorrow?  I would rather have a world of kindly, faulty, human beings, than a world of superior robots who’ve said goodbye to pity and understanding and sympathy.”
Character:  Hilary Craven
Chapter/Story:  9
Book Title/Copyright:  So Many Steps to Death, 1954

Work Ethic

Subject:  Work vs. Leisure  
Quote:  “Eh bien, I have got on very well without them [the classics].”
            “Got on!  Got on?  It’s not a question of getting on.  That’s the wrong view altogether.  The classics aren’t a ladder leading to quick success, like a modern correspondence course!  It’s not a man’s working hours that are important—it’s his leisure hours.  That’s the mistake we all make.”
Character:  M. Hercule Poirot and Dr. Burton
Chapter/Story:  “How It All Came About”
Book Title/Copyright:  The Labors of Hercules, 1947


Subject:  Work Ethic
Quote:  “I sent the boys out.  They do what they can—good lads—good lads all of them, but not what they used to be in the old days.  They don’t come that way nowadays.  Not willing to learn, that’s what it is.  Think they know everything after they’ve only been a couple of years on the job.  And they work to time.  Shocking the way they work to time…. And all this education racket.  It gives them ideas.  They come back and tell us what they think.  They can’t think, most of them, anyway.  All they know is things out of books.  That’s no good in our business.  Bring in the answers—that’s all that’s needed—no thinking.”
Character:  Mr. Goby
Chapter/Story:  12
Book Title/Copyright:  Funerals Are Fatal, 1953

Women

Subject:  Women's Intuition
Quote:  “Les femmes,” he murmured, “they like to think that it is a special weapon that the good God has given them, and for every once that it shows them the truth, at least nine times it leads them astray.”
Character:  M.  Hercule Poirot
Chapter/Story:  “The Under Dog”
Book Title/Copyright:  The Underdog and Other Stories, 1923


Subject:  Positive Ladies
Quote:  “I have made it a rule never to argue with very positive ladies…. It is a waste of time.”
Character:  M. Hercule Poirot
Chapter/Story:  “The Under Dog”
Book Title/Copyright:  The Underdog and Other Stories, 1923


Subject:  Respectable Women
Quote:  “If you read the papers carefully, you will find that often a nice respectable woman of that age leaves a husband she has lived with for twenty years, and sometimes a whole family of children as well, in order to link her life with that of a young man considerably her junior…. In the autumn of a woman’s life, there comes always one mad moment when she longs for romance, for adventure—before it is too late.”
Character:  M. Hercule Poirot
Chapter/Story:  “The Cornish Mystery”
Book Title/Copyright:  The Underdog and Other Stories, 1923


Subject:  Women
Quote:  And all women, without in the least meaning it, consider every man they meet as a possible husband for themselves or their best friend.   
Character:  Anne Beddingfeld
Chapter/Story:  10
Book Title/Copyright:  The Man in the Brown Suit, 1924



Subject:  Women
Quote:  That’s how they do it, these girls!  Othello charmed Desdemona by telling her stories, but, oh, didn’t Desdemona charm Othello by the way she listened?
Character:  Sir Eustace Pedler’s narrative
Chapter/Story:  11  
Book Title/Copyright:  The Man in the Brown Suit, 1924 


Subject:  Women 
Quote:  “And of course there is really nothing a woman enjoys so much as doing all the things she doesn’t like for the sake of someone she does like.  And the more self-willed she is, the more she likes it.”
Character:  Anne Beddingfeld
Chapter/Story:  19
Book Title/Copyright:  The Man in the Brown Suit, 1924 


Subject:  Flattery
Quote:  He [Mr. Mayherne] knew something of the mentality of elderly ladies.  He saw Miss French, infatuated with the good-looking young man, hunting about for pretexts that would bring him to the house.  What more likely than that she should plead ignorance of business, and beg him to help her with her money affairs?  She was enough of a woman of the world to realize that any man is slightly flattered by such an admission of his superiority.
Character:  Omniscient Narrator
Chapter/Story:  “The Witness for the Prosecution”
Book Title/Copyright:  Witness for the Prosecution, 1924


Subject:  Women’s Intuition          
Quote:  “Les femmes…they are marvelous!  They invent haphazard—and by miracle they are right.  Not that it is that, really.  Women observe subconsciously a thousand little details, without knowing that they are doing so.  Their subconscious mind adds these little things together—and they call the result intuition.”
Character:  M. Hercule Poirot 
Chapter/Story:  13—The Goose Quill
Book Title/Copyright:  The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, 1926


Subject:  Gentlewomen
Quote:  “I remember my dear mother teaching me that a gentlewoman should always be able to control herself in public, however much she may give way in private.”
Character:  Miss Jane Marple
Chapter/Story: 10—“A Christmas Tragedy”
Book Title/Copyright:  The Tuesday Club Murders, 1928


Subject:  Women and Men
Quote:  “You see, I have been on my own pretty well since I was sixteen.  I have never come into contact with many women and I know very little about them, but I know really a lot about men.  And unless a girl can size up a man pretty accurately, and know what she’s got to deal with, she will never get on.  I have got on.”
Character:  Emily Trefusis
Chapter/Story:  11—Emily Sets to Work
Book Title/Copyright:  Murder at Hazelmoor, 1931


Subject:  Pitiable Women
Quote:  “I hate a slobbering female,” said Miss Percehouse.   “I like one who gets up and does things.”
            She looked at Emily sharply.  “I suppose you pity me—lying here never able to get up and walk about?”
            “No,” said Emily thoughtfully, “I don’t know that I do.  I suppose that one can, if one has the determination, always get something out of life.  If you can’t get it one way you get it in another.”
            “Quite right,” said Miss Percehouse.  “You’ve got to take life from a different angle, that’s all.”
Character:  Miss Percehouse and Emily Trefusis
Chapter/Story: 17—Miss Percehouse
Book Title/Copyright:  Murder at Hazelmoor, 1931


Subject:  Women          
Quote:  “She’s a great deal too good for Mr. James Pearson.  Beyond his good looks I wouldn’t say there was much to him in the way of character.”
            “But if she’s a managing young woman that’s what she likes,” said the Chief Constable.
Character:  Inspector Narracott and the Chief Constable
Chapter/Story: 24—Narracott Discusses the Case
Book Title/Copyright:  Murder at Hazelmoor, 1931 


Subject:  Women and Romance
Quote:  “You have, my dear Claude, performed a meritorious action. You have given an unhappy woman what every woman needs—a romance.   A woman tears a passion to pieces and gets no good from it, but a romance can be laid up in lavender and looked at all through the long years to come.  I know human nature, my boy, and I tell you that a woman can feed on such an incident for years.”
Character:  Mr. Parker Pyne
Chapter/Story:  “The Case of the Middle-Aged Wife”
Book Title/Copyright:  Mr. Parker Pyne, Detective, 1932 


Subject: Female Point of View
Quote:  “You do not understand human nature, Mr. Wade.  Still less do you understand feminine human nature.  At the present moment you are, from the feminine point of view, merely a waste product.  Nobody wants you.  What use has a woman for something that no one wants?  None whatever.” 
Character:  Mr. Parker Pyne
Chapter/Story:  “The Case of the Discontented Husband”
Book Title/Copyright:  Mr. Parker Pyne, Detective, 1932


Subject:  Women
Quote:  “If a woman has to choose between a mug and a Don Juan, she will choose Don Juan every time.  Your wife, Mr. Jeffries, is a charming, innocent, high-minded girl, and the only way she is going to get any kick out of her life with you is to believe that she has reformed a rake….”
            “I never want to look at any woman but Elsie,” said Mr. Jeffries simply.
            “Splendid, my boy.... But I shouldn’t let her know that, if I were you.  No woman likes to feel she’s taken on too soft a job.’ 
Character:  Mr. Parker Pyne
Chapter/Story:  “Have You Got Everything You Want?”
Book Title/Copyright:  Mr. Parker Pyne, Detective, 1932 


Subject:  Older Women
Quote:  “I’m worrying about you.  You’ve been squandering your birthright…. What are the years from twenty to forty?  Fettered and bound by personal and emotional relationships.  That’s bound to be.  That’s living.  But later there’s a new stage.  You can think, observe life, discover something about other people and the truth about yourself.  Life becomes real—significant.  You see it as a whole.  Not just one scene—the scene you, as an actor, are playing.  No man or woman is actually himself (or herself) til after forty-five.  That’s when individuality has a chance.” 
Character:  Mr. Parker Pyne
Chapter/Story:  “Problem at Pollensa Bay”
Book Title/Copyright:  The Regatta Mystery, 1932


Subject:  Ladylike Behavior
Quote:  [F]rom the moment I set eyes on her, I felt sure that Mrs. Leidner was a lady.  And a lady, in my experience, very seldom displays curiosity about one’s private affairs.
Character:  Nurse Amy Leatheran’s narrative   
Chapter/Story:  6 – First Evening
Book Title/Copyright:  Murder in Mesopotamia, 1935


Subject:  Women as Realists
Quote:  “As a matter of fact it wouldn’t be safe to tell any man the truth about his wife!  Funnily enough, I’d trust most women with the truth about their husbands.  Women can accept the fact that a man is a rotter, a swindler, a drug taker, a confirmed liar, and a general swine without batting an eyelash and without its impairing their affection for the brute in the least!  Women are wonderful realists.”
Character:  Dr. Giles Reilly 
Chapter/Story:  19 – A New Suspicion
Book Title/Copyright:  Murder in Mesopotamia, 1935 


Subject:  Elderly Ladies
Quote:  “I understand a little the mentality of elderly ladies.  They crave, do they not, for novelty.  They get, perhaps, to the end of a person.”
Character:  M. Hercule Poirot
Chapter/Story:  8 
Book Title/Copyright: Poirot Loses a Client, 1937 


Subject:  Mothers as Earwigs
Quote:  “Oh, definitely a dreary woman.  Rather like an earwig.  She’s a devoted mother.  So are earwigs, I believe.”
Character:  Charles Arundell
Chapter/Story:  14
Book Title/Copyright: Poirot Loses a Client, 1937 


Subject:  Women
Quote:  Sarah was of too imperious a temperament herself to brook a calm assertion of autocracy.  Like many high-spirited women, Sarah believed herself to admire strength.  She had always told herself that she wanted to be mastered.  When she met a man capable of mastering her she found that she did not like it at all! 
Character:  Omniscient narrator
Chapter/Story:  2
Book Title/Copyright:  Appointment with Death, 1937


Subject:  Aunts           
Quote:  “What old ladies fancy they see is very often right.  My Aunt Mildred was positively uncanny!  Have you got any aunts yourself, Thomas?”
            “Well—er—no.”
            “A mistake!” said Luke.  “Every man should have aunts.  They illustrate the triumph of guesswork over logic.  It is reserved for aunts to know that Mr. A is a rogue because he looks like a dishonest butler they once had.  Other people say, reasonably enough, that a respectable man like Mr. A couldn’t be a crook.  The old ladies are right every time.” 
Character:  Luke Fitzwilliam and Dr. Thomas
Chapter/Story:  18
Book Title/Copyright:  Easy to Kill, 1938


Subject:  Devoted Wives
Quote:  “[T]here can’t be many women quite as idiotic as she [Mrs. Cayley] seems.” 
            “I have often noticed that being a devoted wife saps the intellect,” murmured Tommy.
            “And where have you noticed that?” demanded Tuppence.
            “Not from you, Tuppence.  Your devotion has never reached those lengths.”
Character:  Tuppence and Tommy Beresford
Chapter/Story:  4
Book Title/Copyright:  N or M?, 1941


Subject:  Tranquility and Women
Quote:  “A very wise friend of mine in the Police Force said to me years ago:  ‘Hercule, my friend, if you would know tranquility, avoid women.’” 
Character:  M. Hercule Poirot
Chapter/Story:  3
Book Title/Copyright:  Evil Under the Sun, 1941


Subject:  Blame the woman
Quote:  Lady Tressilian had the old-fashioned characteristic of always blaming the woman and being indulgent towards the man in the case. 
Character:  Omniscient narrator
Chapter/Story:  “Open the Door and Here Are the People”
Book Title/Copyright:  Towards Zero, 1944 


Subject:  Women and Pride
Quote:  It has been my experience…that women possess little or no pride where love affairs are concerned.  Pride is a quality often on their lips, but not apparent in their actions.”
Character:  Mr. Treves
Chapter/Story:  “Snow White and Rose Red—VI”
Book Title/Copyright:  Towards Zero, 1944 


Subject:  English Womanhood
Quote:  Dagmar Ferrier represented the popular ideal of English womanhood.
            She was a devoted wife, a fond mother, she shared her husband’s love of country life.  She interested herself in just those aspects of public life which were generally felt to be proper spheres of womanly activity.  She dressed well, but never in an ostentatiously fashionable manner.  She devoted much of her time and activity to large-scale charities, she had inaugurated special schemes for the relief of the wives of unemployed men.  She was looked up to by the whole nation and was a most valuable asset to the party.
Character:  Omniscient Narrator
Chapter/Story:  “The Augean Stables”
Book Title/Copyright:  The Labors of Hercules, 1947


Subject:  Women
Quote:  “That she can reform a rake…has always been one of woman’s dearest illusions!”
Character:  M. Hercule Poirot
Chapter/Story:  “The Capture of Cerberus”
Book Title/Copyright:  The Labors of Hercules, 1947


Subject:  Housewives
Quote:  Odd if it’s really that newspaper character “the housewife” who has come into her own through war conditions.  The women who, hindered by innumerable “shall nots,” were not helped by any definite “shalls.”  Women who had to plan and think and improvise, who had to use every inch of the ingenuity they had been given, and to develop an ingenuity that they didn’t know they had got!  They alone…could stand upright without a crutch, responsible for themselves and others.
Character:  Lynn Marchmont
Chapter/Story:  Book One—13
Book Title/Copyright:  There is a Tide, 1948


Subject:  Women 
Quote:  “Women have a much worse time of it in the world than men do.  They’re more vulnerable.  They have children, and they mind—terribly—about their children.  As soon as they lose their looks, the men they love don’t love them any more.  They’re betrayed and deserted and pushed aside.  I don’t blame men.  I’d be the same myself…. It’s a cruel world!  Sooner or later it will be cruel to me!”
Character:  Gina Hudd
Chapter/Story:  16—3
Book Title/Copyright:  Murder With Mirrors (They Do It With Mirrors), 1952


Subject:  Nature’s Way
Quote:  “What a wonderful dispensation it is of Nature’s…that every man, however superficially unattractive, should be some woman’s choice.”
Character:  M. Hercule Poirot
Chapter/Story:  6
Book Title/Copyright:  Mrs. McGinty’s Dead, 1952


Subject:  Women and Men 
Quote:  What any woman saw in some particular man was beyond the comprehension of the average intelligent male…. A woman who could be intelligent about everything else in the world could be a complete fool when it came to some particular man…. And that had its dangers in more ways than one.
Character:  Mr. Entwhistle
Chapter/Story:  5—iv
Book Title/Copyright:  Funerals Are Fatal, 1953


Subject:  Women and Make-up
Quote:  In his experience, women suffering from violent grief and anxiety did not neglect their make-up.  Aware of the ravages grief made in their appearance, they did their best to repair those ravages.
Character:  Mr. Jessop
Chapter/Story:  1
Book Title/Copyright:  So Many Steps to Death, 1954


Subject:  Women and Happiness
Quote:  “Given that you have all you ask for, what can one not achieve?”
            “Happiness?” asked Hilary.
            He flashed her a quick smile…. “Ah, you are a woman, Madame.  It is women who ask always for happiness.”
            “And seldom get it?” asked Hilary.
            He shrugged his shoulders.
            “That may be.”
Character:  Dr. Louis Barron and Hilary Craven
Chapter/Story:  9
Book Title/Copyright:  So Many Steps to Death, 1954


Subject:  Elderly Ladies
Quote:  “He [my godfather] told me never to despise the”—Dermot Craddock paused for a moment to seek for a synonym for “old pussies’’—“er—elderly ladies.  He said they could usually tell you what might have happened, what ought to have happened and even what actually did happen!  And, he said, they can tell you why it happened!”
Character:  Detective Inspector Dermot Craddock
Chapter/Story:  16
Book Title/Copyright:  What Mrs. McGillicuddy Saw! [4:50 From Paddington], 1957


Subject:  Women and Money
Quote:  “Women have a lot of sense, you know, when it comes to money matters.  Not high finance, of course,  No woman can hope to understand that, my dear father said.  But every day matters….”
Character:  Miss Jane Marple
Chapter/Story:  26
Book Title/Copyright:  What Mrs. McGillicuddy Saw! [4:50 From Paddington], 1957

War, Effects of

Subject: Patriotism
Quote: “I hate the War…. I hate the cant about it, the smugness—the horrible, horrible patriotism…. All this country, country, country! Betraying your country—dying for your country—serving your country. Why should one’s country mean anything at all?”
            Tommy said simply: “I don’t know. It just does.”
           "You believe in the British Empire—and—and the stupidity of dying for one’s country…. Nothing’s worth dying for. It’s all an idea—talk—froth—high-flown idiocy. My country doesn’t mean anything to me at all.”
          “Some day,” said Tommy, “you’ll be surprised to find that it does.”
Character: Sheila Perenna and Tommy Beresford
Chapter/Story: 4
Book Title/Copyright: N or M?, 1941


Subject:  Effects of War
Quote:  Always, all her life, she had been a resolute clearheaded person.  She had known what she wanted and what she didn’t want.  Never, until now, had she been content just to drift along.
            Yes, that was just what it was!  Drifting along!  An aimless formless method of living.  Ever since she had come out of the service.  A wave of nostalgia swept over her for those war days.  Days when duties were clearly defined, when life was planned and orderly—when the weight of individual decisions had been lifted from her.  But even as she formulated the idea, she was horrified at herself.  Was that really and truly what people were secretly feeling everywhere?  Was that what, ultimately, war did to you?  It was not the physical dangers…. No, it was the spiritual danger of learning how much easier life was if you ceased to think.  She…was no longer the clearheaded, resolute, intelligent girl who had joined up.  Her intelligence had been specialized, directed in well-defined channels.  Now, mistress of herself and her life once more, she was appalled at the disinclination of her mind to seize and grapple with her own personal problems.
Character:  Omniscient Narrator
Chapter/Story:  Book One—13
Book Title/Copyright:  There is a Tide, 1948

Wages of Sin

Subject:  Wages of Sin
Quote:  “The wages of sin, mademoiselle, are said to be death.  But sometimes the wages of sin seem to be luxury.  Is that any more endurable, I wonder?  To be cut off from one’s own home life.  To catch, perhaps, a single glimpse of it when the way back to it is barred—“
Character:  M. Hercule Poirot
Chapter/Story:  Book Two—13
Book Title/Copyright:  There is a Tide, 1948

Voice

Subject: Annoying Voices
Quote: Her voice had that faintly complaining note in it which is about the most annoying sound a human voice can contain.
Character: Omniscient Narrator
Chapter/Story: 10—The Pearson Family
Book Title/Copyright: Murder at Hazelmoor, 1931

Vanity

Subject: Vanity
Quote: “It [agreeing to marry her husband] made me feel so powerful…. The others thought me simply wonderful, and of course, it would have been very nice for them to have me. But I’m everything you most dislike and disapprove of, and yet you couldn’t withstand me! My vanity couldn’t hold out against that. It’s so much nicer to be a secret and delightful sin to anybody than to be a feather in his cap. I make you frightfully uncomfortable and stir you up the wrong way the whole time, and yet you adore me madly. You do adore me madly, don’t you?”
Character: Griselda, the vicar’s wife
Chapter/Story: 1
Book Title/Copyright: Murder at the Vicarage, 1930


Subject:  Murderer’s Vanity
Quote:  “I’ve never met a murderer who wasn’t vain…. It’s their vanity that leads to their undoing, nine times out of ten.  They may be frightened of being caught, but they can’t help strutting and boasting and usually they’re sure they’ve been far too clever to be caught.”
Character:  Sir Arthur Hayward
Chapter/Story:  12
Book Title/Copyright:  Crooked House, 1949


Subject:  Vanity
Quote:  “Why do people keep, in particular, photographs?… It reminds them…. Why does a woman keep a photograph of herself when young?  And I say that the first reason is, essentially, vanity.  She has been a pretty girl and she keeps a photograph of herself to remind her of what a pretty girl she was.  It encourages her when her mirror tells her unpalatable things.”
Character:  M. Hercule Poirot
Chapter/Story:  20 
Book Title/Copyright:  Mrs. McGinty’s Dead, 1952

Underdog

Subject:  The Under Dog
Quote:  “All through this case I have looked, not for the bad-tempered man or woman, for bad temper is its own safety valve.  He who can bark does not bite.  No, I have looked for the good-tempered man, for the man who is patient and self-controlled, for the man who for nine years has played the part of the under dog.  There is no strain so great as that which has endured for years, there is no resentment like that which accumulates slowly.”
Character:  M. Hercule Poirot
Chapter/Story:  “The Under Dog”
Book Title/Copyright:  The Underdog and Other Stories, 1923 

Truth & Deception

Subject:  Truth
Quote:  “Not only is truth stranger than fiction—it is more dramatic.”
Character:  M. Hercule Poirot
Chapter/Story:  “The King of Clubs”
Book Title/Copyright:  The Underdog and Other Stories, 1923


Subject: Truth
Quote:  “The truth, however ugly in itself, is always curious and beautiful to the seeker after it.”
Character:  M. Hercule Poirot
Chapter/Story:  12—Round the Table
Book Title/Copyright:  The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, 1926


Subject:  Gullibility
Quote:  “Men like Archer and his pals would swear to anything.  There’s no believing a word they say.  We know that.  But the public doesn’t, and the jury’s taken from the public, more’s the pity.  They know nothing, and ten to one believe everything that’s said in the witness box, no matter who it is that says it.”
Character:  Inspector Slack
Chapter/Story:  25
Book Title/Copyright:  Murder at the Vicarage, 1930


Subject:  Telling the Truth
Quote:  “As a matter of fact it wouldn’t be safe to tell any man the truth about his wife!  Funnily enough, I’d trust most women with the truth about their husbands.  Women can accept the fact that a man is a rotter, a swindler, a drug taker, a confirmed liar, and a general swine without batting an eyelash and without its impairing their affection for the brute in the least!  Women are wonderful realists.”
Character:  Dr. Giles Reilly
Chapter/Story:  19 – A New Suspicion
Book Title/Copyright:  Murder in Mesopotamia, 1935


Subject:  The Truth Will Out
Quote:  “[T]here is nothing so dangerous for any one who has something to hide as conversation!  Speech, so a wise old Frenchman said to me once, is an invention of man’s to prevent him from thinking.  It is also an infallible means of discovering that which he wishes to hide.  A human being, Hastings, cannot resist the opportunity to reveal himself and express his personality, which conversation gives him.  Every time he will give himself away.”
Character:  M. Hercule Poirot
Chapter/Story:  31 – Hercule Poirot Asks Questions
Book Title/Copyright:  The A.B.C. Murders, 1936


Subject:  Truth and Archaeology
Quote:  “In the course of an excavation, when something comes up out of the ground, everything is cleared away very carefully all around it.  You take away the loose earth, and you scrape here and there with a knife until finally your object is there, all alone, ready to be drawn and photographed with no extraneous matter confusing it.  That is what I have been seeking to do—clear away the extraneous matter so that we can see the truth—the naked shining truth.”
Character:  M. Hercule Poirot
Chapter/Story:  XXVII
Book Title/Copyright:  Death on the Nile, 1938


Subject:  Lying
Quote:  “I don’t mind lying in the least.  To be quite honest I get a lot of artistic pleasure out of my lies.  What gets me down is those moments when one forgets to lie—the times when one is just oneself—and gets result that way that you couldn’t have got any other.”
Character:  Tuppence Beresford
Chapter/Story:  4
Book Title/Copyright:  N or M?, 1941


Subject:  Deception
Quote:  “You know that in all tombs there is always a false door?… Well, people are like that too.  They create a false door—to deceive.  If they are conscious of weakness, of inefficiency, they make an imposing door of self-assertion, of bluster, of overwhelming authority—and, after a time, they get to believe in it themselves.  They think, and everybody things, that they are like that.  But behind that door, Renisenb, is bare rock… And so when reality comes and touches them with the feather of truth—their true self reasserts itself.  For Kait gentleness and submission brought her all she desired—a husband and children.  Stupidity made life easier for her.  But when reality in the form of danger threatened, her true nature appeared.  She did not change, Renisenb—that strength and that ruthlessness were always there.
Character:  Hori
Chapter/Story:  10--III
Book Title/Copyright:  Death Comes as the End, 1944


Subject:  The Worst
Quote:  “You’ve always been a sweet innocent looking creature, Jane, and all the time underneath nothing has ever surprised you, you always believe the worst.”
            “The worst is so often true,” murmured Miss Marple.
Character:  Mrs. Ruth Van Rydock and Miss Jane Marple
Chapter/Story:  1
Book Title/Copyright:  Murder With Mirrors (They Do It With Mirrors), 1952


Subject:  Premonition
Quote:  “And you’d actually had a premonition that day in church?”
            “I wouldn’t call it a premonition.  It was founded on fact—these things usually are, though one doesn’t always recognize it at the time.  She was wearing her Sunday hat the wrong way round.  Very significant, really, because Grace Lamble was a most precise woman, not at all vague or absent-minded…”
Character:  Mrs. Ruth Van Rydock and Miss Jane Marple.
Chapter/Story:  1
Book Title/Copyright:  Murder With Mirrors (They Do It With Mirrors), 1952

Trust

Subject:  Trust
Quote:  “The truth is, you see, that most people—and I don’t exclude policemen—are far too trusting for this wicked world.  They believe what is told them.  I never do.  I’m afraid I always like to prove a thing for myself.”
Character:  Miss Jane Marple
Chapter/Story:  22
Book Title/Copyright:  The Body in the Library, 1942


Subject:  Love and Trust
Quote:  “Can you love someone you don’t trust?”
            “Unfortunately, yes.”
Character:  Lynn Marchmont and M. Hercule Poirot
Chapter/Story:  Book Two—12
Book Title/Copyright:  There is a Tide, 1948

Trouble

Subject:  Human Troubles
Quote:  “Human troubles are easily classified into a few main heads.  There is ill health.  There is boredom.  There are wives who are in trouble over their husbands.  There are husbands…who are in trouble over their wives.”
Character:  Mr. Parker Pyne
Chapter/Story:  “The Case of the Discontented Husband”
Book Title/Copyright:  Mr. Parker Pyne, Detective, 1932


Subject:  Trouble
Quote:  “Never go halfway to meet trouble, that’s my motto.”
Character:  Cedric Crackenthorpe
Chapter/Story:  11
Book Title/Copyright:  What Mrs. McGillicuddy Saw! [4:50 From Paddington], 1957

Travel

Subject:  Travel
Quote:  There are some Americans who pass through Paris and emerge clothed as the Queen of Sheba, but Elizabeth Martin was not one of them.  She was “doing Europe” in a stern, conscientious spirit.  She had high ideas of culture and art and she was anxious to get as much as possible for her limited store of money.
Character:  Omniscient narrator
Chapter/Story:  “The Soul of the Croupier”
Book Title/Copyright:  The Mysterious Mr. Quin, 1930



Subject:  Travel
Quote:  “Life is lived very much the same everywhere…. It wears different clothes—that’s all.” 
Character:  Mr. Satterthwaite
Chapter/Story:  “The Soul of the Croupier”
Book Title/Copyright:  The Mysterious Mr. Quin, 1930


Subject:  Travel
Quote:  They stood there for a moment or two and then Tim spoke.
            “An awful crowd as usual, I suppose,” he remarked disparagingly, indicating the disembarking passengers.
            “They’re usually quite terrible, “ agreed Rosalie.
            All three wore the air of superiority assumed by people who are already in a place when studying new arrivals. 
Character:  Tim Allerton and Rosalie Otterbourne (with Hercule Poirot)
Chapter/Story:  1
Book Title/Copyright:  Death on the Nile, 1938  

Tradition

Subject:  Tradition 
Quote:  “But she was so suitable in every way,” said Eileen Rich.  “She would have carried out things in exactly your ways, in exactly your ideas.”
            “Yes,” said Miss Bulstrode, “and that’s just what would have been wrong.  You can’t hold on to the past.  A certain amount of tradition is good but never too much.  A school is for the children of today.  It’s not for the children of fifty years ago or even thirty years ago…. You’ll find it written in the Bible.  Their old men dream dreams and their young men have visions.  We don’t need dreams here, we need vision.”
Character:  Eileen Rich and Miss Bulstrode
Chapter/Story:  21—Gathering Threads
Book Title/Copyright:  Cat Among the Pigeons, 1959

Thankfulness

Subject:  Thankfulness
Quote:  “You are in trouble, Mr. Roberts?”
            “No—not in trouble exactly.”
            “You are unhappy?”
            “I shouldn’t like to say that either.  I’ve a great deal to be thankful for.”
            “We all have…but when we have to remind ourselves of the fact it is a bad sign.”
Character:  Mr. Parker Pyne
Chapter/Story:  “The Case of the City Clerk”
Book Title/Copyright:  Mr. Parker Pyne, Detective, 1932

Tact

Subject:  Tact
Quote:  “No need to be so damned tactful.”
            “I know,” admitted Tuppence.  “There is something about conscious tact that is very irritating.  But then it irritates you if I do ask.”
Character: Tommy and Tuppence Beresford
Chapter/Story:  1
Book Title/Copyright:  N or M?, 1941

Suicide

Subject:  Suicide
Quote:  “[D]amn it all, it’s my life.  I’ve a right to do what I like with it.”
            “That is a cliché,” said Mr. Satterthwaite wearily.
Character:  Anthony Cosdon and Mr. Satterthwaite
Chapter/Story:  “The Man from the Sea”
Book Title/Copyright:  The Mysterious Mr. Quin, 1930



Subject:  Suicide
Quote:  “In my place,” he said, “you would do the same [commit suicide].”
            Mr. Satterthwaite shook his head.  “No,” he said simply.  “In the first place, I doubt if I should have the courage.  It needs courage, and I am not at all a brave individual.  And in the second place—“
            “Well?”
            “I always want to know what is going to happen tomorrow.” 
Character:  Anthony Cosdon and Mr. Satterthwaite
Chapter/Story:
Book Title/Copyright:  The Mysterious Mr. Quin, 1930


Subject:  Suicide
Quote:  “If suicide is your idea of escape from trouble then it doesn’t very much matter what the trouble is.  Whenever some very unpleasant shock had to be faced, she’d have done the same thing.”
Character:  Mrs. Dane Calthrop 
Chapter/Story:  3
Book Title/Copyright:  The Moving Finger, 1942

Success

Subject:  Success          
Quote:  “I attribute my success entirely to my habits of early rising, frugal living, and methodical habits.” 
Character:  Sir Oswald Coote
Chapter/Story:  1—On Early Rising
Book Title/Copyright:  The Seven Dials Mystery, 1929 


Subject:  Unhappy Successes
Quote:  “He’s just one of the usual unhappy successes…. 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…. The happy people are failures because they are on such good terms with themselves that they don’t give a damn.”
Character:  Anthony Browne 
Chapter/Story:  3
Book Title/Copyright:  Remembered Death (Sparkling Cyanide), 1945