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.
I've got a stomach now as well as a behind. And I mean - well, you can't pull it in both ways, can you? ... I've made it a rule to pull in my stomach and let my behind look after itself.
Why shouldn't I hate her? She did the worst thing to me that anyone can do to anyone else. Let them believe that they're loved and wanted and then show them that it's all a sham.
One must accept the fact that we have only one companion in this world, a companion who accompanies us from the cradle to the grave - our own self. Get on good terms with that companion - learn to live with yourself.
Who are you? You don't belong to the police?' 'I am better than the police,' said Poirot. He said it without conscious arrogance. It was, to him, a simple statement of fact.
It often seems to me that's all detective work is, wiping out your false starts and beginning again." Yes, it is very true, that. And it is just what some people will not do. They conceive a certain theory, and everything has to fit into that theory. If one little fact will not fit it, they throw it aside. But it is always the facts that will not fit in that are significant.
It is odd how, when you have a secret belief of your own which you do not wish to acknowledge, the voicing of it by someone else will rouse you to a fury of denial.
Lie is more worth living, more full of interest when you are likely to lose it. It shouldn't be, perhaps, but it is. When you're young and strong and healthy, and life stretches ahead of you, living isn't really important at all. It's young people who commit suicide easily, out of despair from love, sometimes from sheer anxiety and worry. But old people know how valuable life is and how interesting. - Jane Marple
And so could you know it if you would only use the brains the good God has given you. Sometimes I really am tempted to believe that by inadvertence, He passed you by.