Scottish author (1936-2019)
I have always found the most vociferous guardians of morality on matters of sex are those who aren't getting any.
M.C. BEATON
Agatha Raisin and the Day the Floods Came
No one could remain an atheist with larks around, he thought dreamily.
M.C. BEATON
Death of a Perfect Wife
Clever plastic surgery can restore an appearance of youth, but nothing changes the expression of age and experience in the eyes.
M.C. BEATON
As the Pig Turns
The other diners studied him with the polite frozen smiles the English use for threatening behaviour.
M.C. BEATON
The Quiche of Death
That woman has halitosis of the soul.
M.C. BEATON
Agatha Raisin and the Wellspring of Death
Like most thin-skinned people who have been snubbed, he could not leave the snubbers alone.
M.C. BEATON
Death of a Cad
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
Death of a Charming Man
Christmas had done its usual merry work of setting husband against wife, relative against relative, and spreading bad will among men in general.
M.C. BEATON
Death of a Snob
What sinks of iniquity these little villages can be.
M.C. BEATON
Agatha Raisin and the Busy Body
Ah, when love dies, women lose two and a half inches in height.
M.C. BEATON
Love, Lies and Liquor
I am not in the mood to have my underwear examined.
M.C. BEATON
Death of a Dustman
How odd that people could be so ugly, not particularly because of appearence, but because of the atmosphere of judgemental bad temper and discontent they carried around with them.
M.C. BEATON
Agatha Raisin and the Wellspring of Death
More and more people each year are going abroad for Christmas ... Fed up with the fact that commercial Christmas starts in October. Fed up with carols. Dreading the arrival of Christmas cards from people they have forgotten to send a card to. Unable to bear yet another family get-together with Auntie Mary puking up in the corner after sampling too much of the punch. You see in the airports the triumphant glitter in the eyes of people who are leaving it all behind, including the hundredth rerun of Miracle on 34th Street.
M.C. BEATON
A Highland Christmas
One day a baking competition, another a murder.
M.C. BEATON
Death of a Celebrity
Husbands are always angry, that's their nature. And the nature of us women is not to pay a blind bit of notice.
M.C. BEATON
Death of a Scriptwriter
People never realize that love is indeed blind. They feel like a soul mate of the loved one. No awful loneliness of spirit. Two against the world. So they marry, and what happens? After a certain time, they look across the breakfast table and find they are looking at a stranger.
M.C. BEATON
Agatha Raisin and the Love from Hell