Often cited as the best-selling fiction writer of all time, Agatha Christie is known as the 'Queen of Crime'.
She wrote 66 detective novels and 14 short stories, as well as penning the play The Mousetrap. Her work remains popular today, as proved by long-running production of The Mousetrap, as well as countless TV and film adaptations – the latest of which is BBC One's Devon-set murder mystery Towards Zero.
And while her stories often take us to places such as Istanbul and the River Nile, the Miss Marple series is set in the fictional English village of St Mary Mead – and Devon, where she grew up, frequently inspired her work. She described her family holiday home Greenway (now owned by the National Trust), which is perched on the edge of the peaceful River Dart, as the "the loveliest place in the world". Here are some of her best quotes that showcase her astute observation and wit.
Best Agatha Christie quotes
It's not a man's working hours that are important – it's his leisure hours. That's the mistake we all make.
The Labours of Hercules
Dogs are wise. They crawl away into a quiet corner and lick their wounds and do not rejoin the world until they are whole once more.
The Moving Finger
Trains are wonderful... To travel by train is to see nature and human beings, towns and churches and rivers, in fact, to see life.
The out-of-date returns in due course as the picturesque.
At Bertram's Hotel
I married an archeologist because the older I grow, the more he appreciates me.
It is clear that the books owned the shop rather than the other way about. Everywhere they had run wild and taken possession of their habitat, breeding and multiplying, and clearly lacking any strong hand to keep them down.
The Clocks
Tea! Bless ordinary everyday afternoon tea!
Nature repeats herself more than one would imagine. The sea has infinitely more variety.
Murder in the Mews
One day we saw that a house was up for sale that I had known when I was young... So we went over to Greenway, and very beautiful the house and grounds were. A white Georgian house of about 1780 or 90, with woods sweeping down to the Dart below, and a lot of fine shrubs and trees – the ideal house, a dream house.
Main image: Agatha Christie signing books/Getty
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