Top 35 M.C. Beaton Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “A library is a palace of dreams.”

— M.C. Beaton

2. “Okay, I’m lazy. But being lazy is a talent. Sometimes it takes an awful lot of work.”

— M.C. Beaton

3. “I never wanted to be a literary writer. I wanted to be an entertainer. All I wanted was to give what a lot of writers had given me: a good time on a bad day.”

— M.C. Beaton

4. “Look for me by moonlight; Watch for me by moonlight; I’ll come to thee by moonlight, though hell should bar the way! – Alfred Noyes.”

— M.C. Beaton

5. “What’s gone, and what’s past help Should be past grief. – William Shakespeare.”

— M.C. Beaton

6. “Good-bye healthy life and hullo rubber knickers and support hose?”

— M.C. Beaton

7. “Clever plastic surgery can restore an appearance of youth, but nothing changes the expression of age and experience in the eyes.”

— M.C. Beaton

8. “Ah, when love dies, women lose two and a half inches in height.”

— M.C. Beaton

9. “See, the happy moron, He doesn’t give a damn, I wish I were a moron, My God! perhaps I am! – Anonymous.”

— M.C. Beaton

10. “The other diners studied him with the polite frozen smiles the English use for threatening behaviour.”

— M.C. Beaton

11. “Although she far outranked Hamish, she had to wait patiently, because this was Lochdubh, where Hamish Macbeth was king.”

— M.C. Beaton

12. “Oh, really,” said Deborah brightly, “you don’t look like the sort of man who reads anything.”

— M.C. Beaton

13. “Isn’t it sad that we only get upset about nasty things happening to people and places if television decides we should?”

— M.C. Beaton

14. “No one could remain an atheist with larks around, he thought dreamily.”

— M.C. Beaton

15. “Agatha had that old feeling of being on the outside of life looking in.”

— M.C. Beaton

16. “Just at the turn of the tide, nature held its breath – no bird sang, everything seemed to be waiting and waiting. And then, sure enough, as if someone had flicked a switch, everything started in motion again.”

— M.C. Beaton

17. “I wish I loved the Human Race; I wish I loved its silly face; I wish I liked the way it walks; I wish I liked the way it talks: And when I’m introduced to one I wish I thought What Jolly Fun! – Sir Walter A. Raleigh.”

— M.C. Beaton

18. “Mrs. Wellington was wearing a voluminous flannel nightgown when she answered the door. Hamish was glad Mr. Wellington had found God, because it certainly looked as if he would need to wait until he got to heaven to get his reward.”

— M.C. Beaton

19. “A lady is as young as the gentleman she feels,” said Roy and cackled happily.”

— M.C. Beaton

20. “He fished steadily, trying to fight down a dragging, aching sense of loss, wondering how one’s brain should know all the sensible answers while one’s emotions longed for the unattainable.”

— M.C. Beaton

21. “Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps; for he is the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are, and what they ought to be. – William Hazlitt.”

— M.C. Beaton

22. “And being very young and capable of violent mood swings, she then began to worry about what to wear for dinner.”

— M.C. Beaton

23. “Agatha’s last case had concerned a Sweeny Todd of a murderer over at Winter Parva.”

— M.C. Beaton

24. “They were obsessed, taken hostage, or co-dependent – anything rather than admit they were not in control, for the very word “love” now meant weakness.”

— M.C. Beaton

25. “That was the trouble with so many reality programmes on television – everyone wanted fame these days without necessarily working at anything to achieve it.”

— M.C. Beaton

26. “She turned out to be one of those irritating people who get up to leave and then stand in the doorway chattering away.”

— M.C. Beaton

27. “Christmas had done its usual merry work of setting husband against wife, relative against relative, and spreading bad will among men in general. People looked overfed and hung over and desperately worried about how much they had already spent.”

— M.C. Beaton

28. “I am not in the mood to have my underwear examined.”

— M.C. Beaton

29. “I do hope so. That woman has halitosis of the soul.”

— M.C. Beaton

30. “We have no choice but to move forward,” said Mrs. Bloxby. “That is how life works. We must live our lives looking forward, but we can only truly know ourselves by looking back. We are defined by everything that we have done in the past, but our only hope of change lies in the future.”

— M.C. Beaton

31. “They slipped quietly away while Heather continued her lecture, her eyes half-closed so that she could better enjoy the sound of her own voice, which went on and on.”

— M.C. Beaton

32. “The breeze sent sunny ripples dancing across the sea loch. The village of Lochdubh in Sutherland looked like a picture postcard with its row of small eighteenth-century whitewashed cottages facing the sea loch. Hamish was leaning on the seawall, thinking dark thoughts about getting Charlie transferred back to Strathbane, that ghastly town full of drugs and crime.”

— M.C. Beaton

33. “You know, Mrs. Raisin, beauty is such a dangerous thing. It can slow character formation because people are always willing to credit the beautiful with character attributes they do not have.”

— M.C. Beaton

34. “Aye, it’s an unfair world when you think of it. If that man had been a woman, he’d have been called a harlot!”

— M.C. Beaton

35. “Agatha doubled her rates and then said, “Of course, I halve them for a friend.”

— M.C. Beaton

36. “Agatha went out into the garden. The air was fresh and scented with autumn flowers. She took a deep breath, thinking how good country air was for her health, and then lit a cigarette.”

— M.C. Beaton

37. “Only a fool would cry for someone who didn’t really want them.”

— M.C. Beaton

38. “The cruellest lies are often told in silence. – Robert Louis Stevenson.”

— M.C. Beaton

39. “Bill and Alice were in the kitchen. Doris had served them coffee and biscuits. “Sit down, Agatha,” said Bill. “Of course I’m going to sit down,” said Agatha crossly. “It’s my own bloody house. I can sit on the damned chimney if I feel like it.”

— M.C. Beaton