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Taken at the Flood (Hercule Poirot, #24) QUOTES

Taken at the Flood (Hercule Poirot, #24) QUOTES

1 " What a queer topsy turvy world it was. It used to be the man who went to the wars, the woman who stayed at home. But here the positions were reversed. "

― Agatha Christie , Taken at the Flood (Hercule Poirot, #24)

2 " The Coroner said graciously:
"I have heard of you, M. Poirot," and Poirot made an unsuccessful attempt to look modest. "

― Agatha Christie , Taken at the Flood (Hercule Poirot, #24)

3 " Character, mon cher, does not stand still. It can gather strength. It can also deteriorate. What a person really is, is only apparent when the test comes—that is, the moment when you stand or fall on your own feet. "

― Agatha Christie , Taken at the Flood (Hercule Poirot, #24)

4 " We will sit here and drink coffee, and you shall all three listen to Hercule Poirot while he gives you a lecture on crime. "

― Agatha Christie , Taken at the Flood (Hercule Poirot, #24)

5 " What a person really is, is only apparent when the test comes—that is, the moment when you stand or fall on your own feet. "

― Agatha Christie , Taken at the Flood (Hercule Poirot, #24)

6 " Fellow has the wrong clothes and all that. French chap-or Belgian. Queer fellow, but he's got the goods all right. "

― Agatha Christie , Taken at the Flood (Hercule Poirot, #24)

7 " Doctors, I find, have a very materialistic outlook. The spiritual seems to be strangely hidden from them. They pin their faith on Science - but what I say is... what is Science - what can it do?"
There seemed, to Hercule Poirot, to be no answer to the question other than a meticulous and painstaking description embracing Pasteur, Lister, Humphrey Davy's safety lamp - the convenience of electricity in the home and several hundred other kindred items. But that, naturally, was not the answer Mrs Lionel Cloade wanted. "

― Agatha Christie , Taken at the Flood (Hercule Poirot, #24)

8 " Her first husband (poor child, such a grief to her) was reported dead in Africa. A mysterious country - Africa."
"A mysterious continent," Poirot corrected her. "Possibly. What part -"
She swept on. "Central Africa. The home of voodoo, of the zhombie -"
"The zhombie is in the West Indies."
Mrs Cloade swept on: "- of black magic - of strange and secret practices - a country where a man could disappear and never be heard of again."
"Possibly, possibly," said Poirot. "But the same is true of Piccadilly Circus."
Mrs Cloade waved away Piccadilly Circus. "

― Agatha Christie , Taken at the Flood (Hercule Poirot, #24)

9 " Underhay’s death from fever in Africa had been established "

― Agatha Christie , Taken at the Flood (Hercule Poirot, #24)

10 " Now we can talk," said Poirot. "When I say that, I mean, really, that I shall talk. "

― Agatha Christie , Taken at the Flood (Hercule Poirot, #24)

11 " Was that really and truly what people were secretly feeling everywhere? Was that what, ultimately, war did to you? It was not the physical dangers—the mines at sea, the bombs from the air, the crisp ping of a rifle bullet as you drove over a desert track. No, it was the spiritual danger of learning how much easier life was if you ceased to think… "

― Agatha Christie , Taken at the Flood (Hercule Poirot, #24)

12 " Poirot. “You find out "

― Agatha Christie , Taken at the Flood (Hercule Poirot, #24)

13 " What was one to do, thought Adela, with someone who didn't talk gardening or dogs - those standbys of rural conversation. "

― Agatha Christie , Taken at the Flood (Hercule Poirot, #24)

14 " Poirot did not enter into a controversy. He had already learnt that every single individual had a different version of the theme "What did we fight the war for? "

― Agatha Christie , Taken at the Flood (Hercule Poirot, #24)

15 " Nineteen, twenty, my plate’s empty.’ But the reader’s plate is full "

― Agatha Christie , Taken at the Flood (Hercule Poirot, #24)

16 " The world is becoming a difficult place to live in—except for the strong. "

― Agatha Christie , Taken at the Flood (Hercule Poirot, #24)

17 " It is always easier, Madame, to tell a thing to someone who already has a very good idea of what it is. "

― Agatha Christie , Taken at the Flood (Hercule Poirot, #24)

18 " People are like that—not quite bad or quite good. I don’t suppose I’m particularly straight myself—I have been because there hasn’t been any temptation to be otherwise. But what I have got is plenty of courage and I’m loyal! "

― Agatha Christie , Taken at the Flood (Hercule Poirot, #24)

19 " What I say is a gentleman's a gentleman even if he does drive a tractor. "

― Agatha Christie , Taken at the Flood (Hercule Poirot, #24)

20 " Poirot looked at the girl with interest. A handsome girl, he thought, and intelligent also. Not the type he himself admired. He preferred something softer, more feminine. Lynn Marchmont, he thought, was essentially a modern type—though one might, with equal accuracy, call it an Elizabethan type. Women who thought for themselves, who were free in language, and who admired enterprise and audacity in men. "

― Agatha Christie , Taken at the Flood (Hercule Poirot, #24)