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The 39 Steps (Richard Hannay, #1) QUOTES

The 39 Steps (Richard Hannay, #1) QUOTES

1 " I am an ordinary sort of fellow, not braver than other people, but I hate to see a good man downed, and that long knife would not be the end of Scudder if I could play the game in his place. "

― John Buchan , The 39 Steps (Richard Hannay, #1)

2 " If you’re going to be killed you invent some kind of flag and country to fight for, and if you survive you get to love the thing "

― John Buchan , The 39 Steps (Richard Hannay, #1)

3 " All this was very loose guessing, and I don't pretend it was ingenious or scientific. I wasn't any kind of Sherlock Holmes. But I have always fancied I had a kind of instinct about questions like this. I don't know if I can explain myself, but I used to use my brains as far as they went, and after they came to a blank wall I guessed, and I usually found my guesses pretty right. "

― John Buchan , The 39 Steps (Richard Hannay, #1)

4 " By God!' he whispered, drawing his breath in sharply, 'it is all pure Rider Haggard and Conan Doyle. "

― John Buchan , The 39 Steps (Richard Hannay, #1)

5 " I believe everything out of the common. The only thing to distrust is the normal. "

― John Buchan , The 39 Steps (Richard Hannay, #1)

6 " A fool tries to look different: a clever man looks the same and is different. "

― John Buchan , The 39 Steps (Richard Hannay, #1)

7 " It struck me that Albania was the sort of place that might keep a man from yawning. "

― John Buchan , The 39 Steps (Richard Hannay, #1)

8 " The men who knew that he knew what he knew had found him "

― John Buchan , The 39 Steps (Richard Hannay, #1)

9 " It was a soft breathless June morning, with a promise of sultriness later... "

― John Buchan , The 39 Steps (Richard Hannay, #1)

10 " Pardon,' he said, 'I'm a bit rattled tonight. You see, I happen at this moment to be dead. "

― John Buchan , The 39 Steps (Richard Hannay, #1)

11 " Capital, he said, had no conscience and no fatherland. "

― John Buchan , The 39 Steps (Richard Hannay, #1)

12 " My thoughts hovered over all varieties of mortal edible, and finally settled on a porterhouse steak and a quart of bitter with a welsh rabbit to follow. In longing hopelessly for these dainties I fell asleep. "

― John Buchan , The 39 Steps (Richard Hannay, #1)

13 " I was not a murderer, but I had become an unholy liar, a shameless impostor, and a highwayman with a marked taste for expensive motor-cars. "

― John Buchan , The 39 Steps (Richard Hannay, #1)

14 " I had a fine prospect of the whole ring of moorland. I saw the car speed away with two occupants, and a man on a hill pony riding east. I judged they were looking for me, and I wished them joy of their quest. "

― John Buchan , The 39 Steps (Richard Hannay, #1)

15 " About six in the evening I came out of the moorland to a white ribbon of road which wound up the narrow vale of a lowland stream. As I followed it, fields gave place to bent, the glen became a plateau, and presently I had reached a kind of pass where a solitary house smoked in the twilight. The road swung over a bridge, and leaning on the parapet was a young man. He was smoking a long clay pipe and studying the water with spectacled eyes. In his left hand was a small book with a finger marking the place. Slowly he repeated— As when a Gryphon through the wilderness With winged step, o'er hill and moory dale Pursues the Arimaspian. He jumped round as my step rung on the keystone, and I saw a pleasant sunburnt boyish face. 'Good evening to you,' he said gravely. 'It's a fine night for the road.' The smell of peat smoke and of some savoury roast floated to me from the house. "

― John Buchan , The 39 Steps (Richard Hannay, #1)

16 " (Thirty-nine steps)' was the phrase; and at its last time of use it ran—'(Thirty-nine steps, I counted them—high tide 10.17 p.m.)'. I could make nothing of that. "

― John Buchan , The 39 Steps (Richard Hannay, #1)

17 " A little thing, lasting only a second, and the odds were a thousand to one that I might have had my eyes on my cards at the time and missed it. But I didn't, and, in a flash, the air seemed to clear. Some shadow lifted from my brain, and I was looking at the three men with full and absolute recognition. "

― John Buchan , The 39 Steps (Richard Hannay, #1)

18 " I skumringen kom mannen hennes tilbake fra heiene. Det var en mager kjempe som tok ett skritt der andre dødelige trengte tre. "

― John Buchan , The 39 Steps (Richard Hannay, #1)

19 " Beklager så meget , sa han. Jeg er ikke helt meg selv i kveld. Saken er nemlig den at jeg er død i dette øyeblikk. "

― John Buchan , The 39 Steps (Richard Hannay, #1)

20 " There was more in those eyes than any common triumph. They had been hooded like a bird of prey, and now they flamed with a hawk's pride. A white fanatic heat burned in them, and I realized for the first time the terrible thing I had been up against. This man was more than a spy; in his foul way he had been a patriot. "

― John Buchan , The 39 Steps (Richard Hannay, #1)