Quote: “I believe in small men! They are the clever ones.”
“Inspector Miller,” murmured Poirot, “is, I think, a tall man?”
“He is a bumptious idiot, said Lady Astwell.
Character: Lady Astwell and M. Hercule Poirot
Chapter/Story: “The Under Dog”
Book Title/Copyright: The Underdog and Other Stories, 1923
Subject: Weak Men
Quote: “Get a weak, dissipated young man into a corner, fill him up with a drop too much to drink, and for a limited amount of time you can turn him into a fire-eater. A weak man in a corner is more dangerous than a strong man.”
Character: Detective Inspector Miller
Chapter/Story: “The Under Dog”
Book Title/Copyright: The Underdog and Other Stories, 1923Subject: Men
Quote: "Men ought to know everything," said Dorothy. "That's what they're for."
Character: Miss Dorothy Pratt
Chapter/Story: "A Fruitful Sunday"
Book Title/Copyright: The Golden Ball and Other Stories, 1924
Subject: Men
Quote: "I feel girls should stick together nowadays--they should insist on knowing something about the men they meet.... And the most important thing to a girl is how a man will behave in an emergency--has he got presence of mind--courage--quick-wittedness? That's the kind of thing you can hardly ever know--until it's too late. An emergency mightn't arise until you'd been married for years. All you do know about a man is how he dances and if he's good at getting taxis on a wet night."
"Both very useful accomplishments," George pointed out.
"Yes, but one wants to feel a man is a man."
Characters: Mary Montresor and George Dundas
Chapter/Story: "The Golden Ball"
Book Title/Copyright: The Golden Ball and Other Stories, 1924
Subject: Male Conceit
Quote: “Never worry about what you say to a man. They’re so conceited that they never believe you mean it if it’s unflattering.”
Character: Miss Caroline Sheppard
Chapter/Story: 22—Ursula’s Story
Book Title/Copyright: The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, 1926Subject: Men in Love
Quote: “A man when he is making up to anybody can be cordial and gallant and full of little attentions and altogether charming. But when a man is really in love he can’t help looking like a sheep. Now, whenever that young man looked at you he looked like a sheep. I take back all I said this morning. It is genuine.”
Character: Miss Amelia Viner
Chapter/Story: 30—Miss Viner Gives Judgment
Book Title/Copyright: The Mystery of the Blue Train, 1928Subject: Man’s Legacy
Quote: “I’ve heard it said that every man should build a house, plant a tree, and have a son.”
Character: Anthony Cosdon
Chapter/Story: “The Man from the Sea”
Book Title/Copyright: The Mysterious Mr. Quin, 1930Subject: 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, 1931Subject: Men
Quote: “Did you find Sir Gervase difficult to work for?”
“Oh, not really. One had to humor him a little, of course. But then I always find one has to do that with men.”
With an uneasy feeling that Miss Lingard was probably humoring him at this moment, Major Riddle went on.
Character: Major Riddle and Miss Lingard
Chapter/Story: “Dead Man’s Mirror”
Book Title/Copyright: Dead Man’s Mirror, 1932Subject: Young Men
Quote: “Nature will have her revenge…. It isn’t healthy for a young man to be interested in serious Subjects. He ought to be making an idiot of himself over one girl after another.”
Character: Mr. Parker Pyne
Chapter/Story: “Problem at Pollensa Bay”
Book Title/Copyright: The Regatta Mystery, 1932Subject: Men
Quote: “You know I’ve always thought…that Lady Macbeth incited Macbeth to do all of those murders simply and solely because she was so frightfully bored with life—and incidentally with Macbeth. I’m sure he was one of those meek, inoffensive men who drive their wives distracted with boredom. But having once committed a murder for the first time in his life he felt the hell of a fine fellow and began to develop egomania as a compensation for his former inferiority complex.”
Character: Lady Frances (Frankie) Derwent
Chapter/Story: 23 – Moira Disappears
Book Title/Copyright: The Boomerang Clue, 1933Subject: Men
Quote: Men don’t understand how their mannerisms can get on women’s nerves so that you feel you just have to snap.
Character: Nurse Amy Leatheran’s narrative
Chapter/Story: 22—David Emmott, Father Lavigny, and a Discovery
Book Title/Copyright: Murder in Mesopotamia, 1935 Subject: Scoundrels
Quote: “[H]e was the sort of rat who needed kicking badly. He used to make the toe of my boot fairly itch.”
Character: Major Despard
Chapter/Story: 7 – Fourth Murderer?
Book Title/Copyright: Cards on the Table, 1936Subject: Men
Quote: “Men have courage—one knows that,” said Miss Waynflete—“but they are more easily deceived than women.”
Character: Honoria Waynflete
Chapter/Story: 22
Book Title/Copyright: Easy to Kill, 1938Subject: Men
Quote: “She thought too much about her garden and not enough about her husband. You’ve got to keep an eye on a man all the time—all the time.”
Character: Miss Amanda Hartnell
Chapter/Story: 5
Book Title/Copyright: The Body in the Library, 1942Subject: Men
Quote: “Gentlemen,” she [Miss Marple] said with her old maid’s way of referring to the opposite sex as though it were a species of wild animals, “are frequently not so levelheaded as they seem.”
Character: Miss Jane Marple
Chapter/Story: 12
Book Title/Copyright: The Body in the Library, 1942Subject: Men
Quote: “Nevile, like all men, believes what he wants to believe!… Conscience, you know! Henry [the Eighth] was always trying to get Catherine [of Aragon] to agree that the divorce was the right thing. Nevile knows that he has behaved badly—he wants to feel comfortable about it all. So he has been trying to bully Audrey into saying everything is all right….”
Character: Lady Tressilian
Chapter/Story: “Open the Door and Here Are the People”
Book Title/Copyright: Towards Zero, 1944 Subject: College Boys
Quote: “Boys of that age are so difficult—especially when they are intellectual… One wishes that they could put off being intellectual until they were rather older. As it is, they always glower at one so and bit their nails and seem to have so many spots and sometimes an Adam’s apple as well. And they either won’t speak at all, or else are very loud and contradictory.”
Character: Lucy Angkatell
Chapter/Story: 1
Book Title/Copyright: Murder After Hours (The Hollow), 1946 Subject: A Rich Man
Quote: “He needs your prayers.”
“Is he then an unhappy man?”
Poirot said, “So unhappy that he has forgotten what happiness means. So unhappy that he does not know he is unhappy.”
The nun said softly, “Ah, a rich man…”
Character: M. Hercule Poirot and the Mother Superior
Chapter/Story: “The Apples of the Hesperides”
Book Title/Copyright: The Labors of Hercules, 1947
Subject: Small Men’s Misfortune
Quote: It is the misfortune of small, precise men to hanker after large and flamboyant women.
Character: Omniscient Narrator
Chapter/Story: “The Capture of Cerberus”
Book Title/Copyright: The Labors of Hercules, 1947Subject: 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, 1952Subject: Gentlemen
Quote: When Miss Marple uttered the word “gentlemen” she always gave it its full Victorian flavor—an echo from an era actually before her own time. You were conscious at once of dashing, full-blooded (and probably whiskered) males, sometimes wicked, but always gallant.
Character: Omniscient Narrator
Chapter/Story: 16
Book Title/Copyright: What Mrs. McGillicuddy Saw! [4:50 From Paddington], 1957
