Quote of the day by Agatha Christie: 'A mother's love for her child is like nothing else in the world. It knows no law, no pity...' - A chilling truth about how unconditional love can cross any limits by the English author

Whenever people talk about a mother’s love it is often described as unconditional, but Agatha Christie explored the darker side of it in a short story that shows how grief can easily push a person beyond the limits of simple reasoning. In The Last Séance, the British author shows a mother’s desperate desire to reunite with her dead child through a haunting line: “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.”

Story behind Agatha Christie’s quote

First published in the US magazine Ghost Stories in November 1926, The Last Séance is part of a series of Christie's works that break away from normal detective fiction and enter the realm of supernatural horror.

The story follows Simone, a gifted medium in Paris who can summon the spirits of the dead. The work is hard on her body and she wants to be finished with it so she can marry her fiancé, Raoul.


But before she retires Simone agrees to one last séance for Madame Exe, a grieving mother who lost her young daughter, Amelie,

Madame Exe’s desire to see her child again drives the story toward its tragic conclusion. When the child's spirit appears, the mother breaks the rules of the séance by grabbing the materialised figure and attempting to take her away. The disruption has fatal consequences for Simone.

What does the quote mean?

The phrase stating that “it knows no law, no pity” means that maternal love is so much powerful that it surpasses the laws of the land and moral boundaries. “It dares all things” is about the most extreme risks one can take to defend or recover the thing one loves.

The last words, “crushes remorselessly all that stands in its path,” suggest a more troubling idea. Love can be gentle and caring at first, but despair can make it obsessive and leave no room for logic or for caring about anyone else.

Through Madame Exe, Christie explores the difference between loving a child and being consumed by the need to bring that child back.

Agatha Christie’s darker side

Agatha Christie is still one of the most celebrated writers of detective fiction genre, known for creating memorable investigators such as Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. Her first published novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920), introduced Poirot, who would feature in a number of her best-known mysteries.

She is best known for Murder on the Orient Express (1934), Death on the Nile (1937) and And Then There Were None (1939). They are all known for their clever mysteries and unexpected twists in the story. Christie also wrote The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926), a novel noted for its original approach to the detective story.

But her writing was not confined to murder mysteries. The Last Séance, published in 1926 and included in The Hound of Death and Other Stories (1933) in the UK, deals with supernatural horror, grief and the darker side of human emotion. This story shows how Christie could work with strong psychological themes outside of the detective fiction that she is so well known for.