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.

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.”

There is nothing so intangible, so difficult to pin down, as the source of a rumour.”

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.

took disaster as it should be taken, dealing with it competently and thereby reducing it almost to insignificance.

“Nom d’un nom d’un nom,” said Hercule Poirot.

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. . . .”

It is the misfortune of small precise men to hanker after large and flamboyant women.

“Ce n’est pas gentille, ce que vous avez fait là!”