The Labors of Hercules (Hercule Poirot, #27)

by Agatha Christie

It’s not a man’s working hours that are important—it’s his leisure hours. That’s the mistake we all make.

“Yours aren’t the Labors of Hercules,” he said. “Yours are labors of love.

These gods and goddesses—they seemed to have as many different aliases as a modern criminal. Indeed they seemed to be definitely criminal types. Drink, debauchery, incest, rape, loot, homicide and chicanery—enough to keep a juge d’Instruction constantly busy. No decent family life. No order, no method. Even in their crimes, no order or method!

“Yes. Rumour is indeed the nine-headed Hydra of Lernea which cannot be exterminated because as fast as one head is cropped off two grow in its place.”

Words had become to him a means of obscuring facts—not of revealing them. He was an adept in the art of the useful phrase—that is to say the phrase that falls soothingly on the ear and is quite empty of meaning.

There is a golden rule in life, Georges, never do anything yourself that others can do for you.

“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. . . .”