The Mysterious Mr. Quin Quotes

“You say your life is your own. But can you dare to ignore the chance that you are taking part in a gigantic drama under the orders of a divine Producer? Your cue may not come till the end of the play--it may be totally unimportant, a mere walking-on part, but upon it may hang the issues of the play if you do not give the cue to another player. The whole edifice may crumple. You as you, may not matter to anyone in the world, but you as a person in a particular place may matter unimaginably.”
― Agatha Christie, The Mysterious Mr. Quin

“Is death the greatest evil that can happen to anyone?”
― Agatha Christie, The Mysterious Mr. Quin

“Sometimes one sees things clearly years afterwards than one could possibly at the time.”
― Agatha Christie, The Mysterious Mr. Quin

“There are, of course, the people who revolve around themselves--but I agree with you, she's not one of that kind. She's totally uninterested in herself. And yet she's got a strong character--there must be something. I thought at first it was her art--but it isn't. I've never met anyone so detached from life. That's dangerous.'
'Dangerous? What do you mean?'
'Well, you see--it must mean an obsession of some kind, and obsessions are always dangerous.”
― Agatha Christie, The Mysterious Mr. Quin

“Nobody knows what another person is thinking. They may imagine they do, but they are nearly always wrong.”
― Agatha Christie, The Mysterious Mr. Quin

“The longer the time that has elapsed, the more things fall into proportion. One sees them in their true relationship to one another.”
― Agatha Christie, The Mysterious Mr. Quin

“To get at the cause for a thing, we must study the effect.”
― Agatha Christie, The Mysterious Mr. Quin

“In moments of great stress, the mind focuses itself upon some quite unimportant matter which is remembered long afterwards with the utmost fidelity, driven in, as it were, by the mental stress of the moment. It may be some quite irrelevant detail, like the pattern of a wallpaper, but it will never be forgotten.”
― Agatha Christie, The Mysterious Mr. Quin

“I mean that success has come early. And that is dangerous. Always dangerous.”
― Agatha Christie, The Mysterious Mr. Quin

“Sixty-nine was an interesting age--an age of infinite possibilities--an age when at last the experience of a lifetime was beginning to tell. But to feel old--that was different, a tired, discouraged state of mind when one was inclined to ask oneself depressing questions. What was he after all? A little dried-up elderly man, with neither chick nor child, with no human belongings, only a valuable Art collection which seemed at the moment strangely unsatisfying. No one to care whether he lived or died...”
― Agatha Christie, The Mysterious Mr. Quin

“You may put it that way if you like—but damn it all, it’s my life. I’ve a right to do what I like with it.” “That is a cliché,” said Mr. Satterthwaite wearily.”
― Agatha Christie, The Mysterious Mr. Quin

“He was clearly marked with the stamp of the Philistine.”
― Agatha Christie, The Mysterious Mr. Quin

“She's very selfish. Not exactly self-centered, but totally indifferent to everyone and everything. Don't you agree?'
'I don't think that's possible,' said Mr Satterthwaite, slowly. 'I mean everyone's interest must go somewhere.”
― Agatha Christie, The Mysterious Mr. Quin

“The evidence of history is against you. The contemporary historian never writes such a true history as the historian of a later generation. It is a question of getting the true perspective, of seeing things in proportion.”
― Agatha Christie, The Mysterious Mr. Quin

“He was not fond of young people in herds. He thought them uninteresting and crude.”
― Agatha Christie, The Mysterious Mr. Quin

“Oh, you may smile, Mr. Quin, but you cannot deny what I am saying."

"I deny nothing. In what you see you are always right. And yet—"

"Yet what?"

Mr. Quin leaned forward. His dark melancholy eyes searched for those of Mr. Satterthwaite.

"Have you learned so little of life?" he breathed.”
― Agatha Christie, The Mysterious Mr. Quin

“I speak to you for you will understand. We bought that screen with more than money--with love. For love of it, because it was beautiful and unique, we went without other things, things we needed and missed. These other Chinese pieces my husband speaks of, those we should buy with money only, we should not pay away anything of ourselves.”
― Agatha Christie, The Mysterious Mr. Quin

“What was he after all? A little dried-up elderly man, with neither chick nor child, with no human belongings, only a valuable Art collection which seemed at the moment strangely unsatisfying. No one to care whether he lived or died… At this point in his meditations Mr Satterthwaite pulled himself up short. What he was thinking was morbid and unprofitable. He knew well enough, who better, that the chances were that a wife would have hated him or alternatively that he would have hated her, that children would have been a constant source of worry and anxiety, and that demands upon his time and affection would have worried him considerably. ‘To be safe and comfortable,’ said Mr Satterthwaite firmly–that was the thing. The”
― Agatha Christie, The Mysterious Mr. Quin

“... suppose if something very terrible had happened, so terrible as to be almost unbearable, one might get like that. One might run away from reality into a half world of one's own and then, of course, after a time, one wouldn't be able to get back...”
― Agatha Christie, The Mysterious Mr. Quin

“Thought is yours only. Nobody can alter or influence the use you mean to make of it.”
― Agatha Christie, The Mysterious Mr. Quin

“The eye is diverted from the real business, it is caught by the spectacular action that means nothing--nothing at all.”
― Agatha Christie, The Mysterious Mr. Quin

“¿Quién puede afirmar que aquel niño no podría haberse convertido en un gran músico o en el descubridor de la vacuna contra el cáncer? O algo menos melodramático: podría convertirse en una persona feliz y normal...”
― Agatha Christie, The Mysterious Mr. Quin

“A strange person, this Mr. Quin, with a knack of showing you the things you had known all along in a totally different light.”
― Agatha Christie, The Mysterious Mr. Quin

“But I—the man from outside, the stranger passing by, see only—facts!”
― Agatha Christie, The Mysterious Mr. Quin

“Прошлое - это то, с чем уже успели смириться.”
― Агата Кристи, The Mysterious Mr. Quin

“If entries in ‘Who’s Who’ were strictly truthful, the entries concerning Lady Stranleigh might have ended as follows: hobbies: getting married. She had floated through life shedding husbands as she went. She had lost three by divorce and one by death.”
― Agatha Christie, The Mysterious Mr. Quin

“Such was Mr. Satterthwaite's romance--a rather tepid early Victorian one, but it had left him with a romantic attachment to Kew Gardens, and he would often go there to see the bluebells, or, if he had been abroad later than usual, the rhododendrons, and would sigh to himself, and feel rather sentimental, and really enjoy himself very much indeed in an old-fashioned, romantic way.”
― Agatha Christie, The Mysterious Mr. Quin