Women observe subconsciously a thousand little details, without knowing they are doing so. Their subconscious mind adds these little things together - and they call the result intuition.
I've a theory that one can always get anything one wants if one will pay the price. And do you know what the price is, nine times out of ten? Compromise.
A mother's love for her child is like nothing else in the world. It knows no law, no pity, it dares all things and crushes down remorselessly all that stands in its path.
There is too much tendency to attribute to God the evils that man does of his own free will. I must concede you the Devil. God doesn't really need to punish us, Miss Barton. We're so busy punishing ourselves.
You don't realize what fine fighting material there is in age. ... You show me any one who's lived to over seventy and you show me a fighter - some one who's got the will to live.
But I know human nature, my friend, and I tell you that, suddenly confronted with the possibility of being tried for murder, the most innocent person will lose his head and do the most absurd things.
The point is that one's got an instinct to live. One doesn't live because one's reason assents to living. People who, as we say, 'would be better dead' don't want to die! People who apparently have everything to live for just let themselves fade out of life because they haven't got the energy to fight.
Lie is more worth living, more full of interest when you are likely to lose it. It shouldn't be, perhaps, but it is. When you're young and strong and healthy, and life stretches ahead of you, living isn't really important at all. It's young people who commit suicide easily, out of despair from love, sometimes from sheer anxiety and worry. But old people know how valuable life is and how interesting. - Jane Marple