Hallowe'en Party (Hercule Poirot, #41)

by Agatha Christie

I know there’s a proverb which says ‘To err is human,’ but a human error is nothing to what a computer can do if it tries.

“Old sins have long shadows,” quoted Poirot. “As we advance through life, we learn the truth of that saying.

“There is always a brave new world,” said Poirot, “but only, you know, for very special people. The lucky ones. The ones who carry the making of that world within themselves.”

“The past is the father of the present,” said Poirot sententiously.

Rowena Drake was that dominant type of personality whom everyone expects to run the show, and whom nobody has much affection for while she is doing it.

For himself, Poirot did not agree. He was a man who thought first always of justice. He was suspicious, had always been suspicious, of mercy—too much mercy, that is to say. Too much mercy, as he knew from former experience both in Belgium and this country, 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.

Once you’ve passed, say, fifty, comfort is the only thing that matters.”

But to everything that happens there has to be a past. A past which is by now incorporated in today, but which existed yesterday or last month or last year. The present is nearly always rooted in the past.

It is always difficult to know if you like anyone beautiful. You like beauty to look at, at the same time you dislike beauty almost on principle.

To keep something wild is far more difficult than to preserve it.”