Agatha Christie
Agatha Christie
Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie, Lady Mallowan, DBEwas an English crime novelist, short story writer and playwright. She also wrote six romances under the name Mary Westmacott including Giant's Bread, but she is best known for the 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections that she wrote under her own name, most of which revolve around the investigative work of such characters as Hercule Poirot, Jane Marple, Parker Pyne, Ariadne Oliver, Harley Quin/Mr Satterthwaite and Tommy and Tuppence Beresford...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth15 September 1890
CityTorquay, England
Many years ago, when I was once saying sadly to Max it was a pity I couldn't have taken up archaeology when I was a girl, so as to be more knowledgeable on the subject, he said, 'Don't you realize that at this moment you know more about prehistoric pottery than any woman in England?'
I looked at her. Sheila was my girl--the girl I wanted--and wanted for keeps. But it wasn't any use having illusions about her. Sheila was a liar and probably always would be a liar. It was her way of fighting for survival--the quick easy glib denial. It was a child's weapon--and she'd probably never got out of using it. If I wanted Sheila, I must accept her as she was--be at hand to prop up the weak places. We've all got our weak places. Mine were different from Sheila's, but they were there.
The amount of missing girls I've had to trace and their family and their friends always say the same thing. 'She was a bright and affectionate disposition and had no men friends'. That's never true. It's unnatural. Girls ought to have men friends. If not, then there's something wrong about them....
I'm sorry, but I do hate this differentiation between the sexes. 'The modern girl has a thoroughly businesslike attitude to life' That sort of thing. It's not a bit true! Some girls are businesslike and some aren't. Some men are sentimental and muddle-headed, others are clear-headed and logical. There are just different types of brains.
Now I am old-fashioned. A woman, I consider, should be womanly. I have no patience with the modern neurotic girl who jazzes from morning to night, smokes like a chimney, and uses language which would make a billingsgate fishwoman blush!
Sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely , racked with sorrow, but through it all I still know quite certainly that just being alive is a grand thing.
I know there's a proverb which that says 'To err is human,' but a human error is nothing to what a computer can do if it tries.
Everyone is a potential murderer-in everyone there arises from time to time thewish to kill-though not the will to kill.
But surely for everything you love you have to pay some price.
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.
To all those who lead monotonous lives in the hope that they may experience at second hand the delights and dangers of adventure. [author's dedication]
There hung about her the restrained energy of a whiplash.
It is deplorable...to remove all the romance - all the mystery!
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.