Agatha Christie · 317 pages
Rating: (23.7K votes)
“A man when he is making up to anybody can be cordial and gallant and full of little attentions and altogether charming. But when a man is really in love he can't help looking like a sheep.”
“I do not argue with obstinate men. I act in spite of them.”
“Trains are relentless things, aren't they, Monsieur Poirot? People are murdered and die, but they go on just the same. I am talking nonsense, but you know what I mean."
"Yes, yes, I know. Life is like a train, Mademoiselle. It goes on. And it is a good thing that that is so."
"Why?"
"Because the train gets to its journey's end at last, and there is a proverb about that in your language, Mademoiselle."
"'Journey's end in lovers meeting.'" Lenox laughed. "That is not going to be true for me."
"Yes--yes, it is true. You are young, younger than you yourself know. Trust the train, Mademoiselle, for it is le bon Dieu who drives it."
The whistle of the engine came again.
"Trust the train, Mademoiselle," murmured Poirot again. "And trust Hercule Poirot. He knows.”
“...إن الرجل الطيب قد يهلكه حبه لامرأة سيئة - والعكس صحيح أيضا- فالرجل الشرير قد يهلكه حبه لامرأة طيبة”
“The expected has happened, and when the expected happens, it always causes me emotion.”
“Ah, mais c'est Anglais ca," he murmured, "everything in black and white, everything clear cut and well defined. But life, it is not like that, Mademoiselle. There are things that are not yet, but which cast their shadow before.”
“I am not mad. I am eccentric perhaps--at least certain people say so; but as regards my profession. I am very much as one says, 'all there.”
“You tell your lies and you think nobody knows. But there are two people who know. Yes- two people. One is le bon Dieu - and the other is Hercule Poirot”
“A man when he is making up to anybody can be cordial and gallant and full of little attentions and altogether charming. But when a man is really in love, he can't help looking like a sheep. Now, whenever that young man looked at you, he looked like a sheep. I take back all I said this morning. It is genuine.”
“Katherine Grey was born with the power of managing old ladies, dogs, and small boys, and she did it without any apparent sense of strain.”
“M. Van Aldin is an obstinate man," said Poirot drily. "I do not argue with obstinate men. I act in spite of them.”
“But when a man is really in love he can't help looking like a sheep. Now whenever that young man looked he looked like a sheep I take back all is this morning. It is genuine.”
“those who have listened do not find it easy to talk; they keep their sorrows and joys to themselves and tell no one.”
“-يا آنسة، هذه الأشياء يصعب التعبير عنها. عندما رأيتك أول مرة تقفين متفرجة على الحياة وكنت تبدين هادئة مستمتعة كمن يرقب رواية تقدم أمامه.
-والآن؟
-الآن أنت تراقبين المشهد، وقد يكون ما سأقوله مضحكًا، ولكن تبدو عليك نظرة الحرص التي تبدو على وجه مقاتل يقوم بلعبة صعبة”
“سيدي، لو أن طبيبًا يسير في الطريق فوقعت حادثة، فهل يقول لنفسه: لقد اعتزلت عملي وسأمضي في طريقي، بينما هنالك شخص ينزف حتى الموت تحت قدميه؟”
“I was wrong about that young man of yours. A man when he is making up to anybody can be cordial and gallant and full of little attentions and altogether charming. But when a man is really in love, he can't help looking like a sheep. Now, whenever that young man looked at you, he looked like a sheep. I take back all I said this morning. It is genuine.”
“Yes, yes, I know. Life is like a train, Mademoiselle. It goes on. And it is a good thing that that is so.” “Why?” “Because the train gets to its journey’s end at last, and there is a proverb about that in your language, Mademoiselle.” “ ‘Journeys end in lovers meeting.’ ” Lenox laughed. “That is not going to be true for me.” “Yes—yes, it is true. You are young, younger than you yourself know. Trust the train, Mademoiselle, for it is le bon Dieu who drives it.”
“In an Empire where rats ruled, he was the king of the rats.”
“Forse avete ragione, mademoiselle. Sapete, l'uomo che vi parla ha avuto modo di osservare il mondo in lungo e in largo, e così adesso so che due cose sono vere. Un uomo buono può essere rovinato dal suo amore per una donna cattiva...ma vale anche l'inverso. Un uomo cattivo può ugualmente essere rovinato dal suo amore per una donna buona."
Katherine si volse a guardarlo un pò incerta.
"Quando dite rovinato..."
"Intendo dal suo punto di vista. Uno deve mettere nel fare il male altrettanto trasporto che mette nel fare qualsiasi altra cosa.”
“Io non sono brava come voi, Monsieur Poirot. Metà delle cose che mi avete detto mi sembravano fatti sconclusionati e senza senso. Anche a me erano venute delle idee, ma da un angolo completamente diverso..."
"Ah, ma è sempre così", disse Poirot senza scomporsi. "Uno specchio mostra a tutti la stessa verità, ma ognuno la vede da angoli diversi, a seconda della posizione che ha rispetto a esso.”
“أنا لا أعني شيئًا، كل ما في الأمر أنني أرتب الحقائق”
“إنها مثل أي شخص بارد الأعصاب واثق من نفسه، عندما يفقد سيطرته على نفسه يفقدها تمامًا”
“إن سيدتي محظوظة فالشمس مشرقة، قد يحدث أن يصل المسافر إلى هنا ليجد الجو قاتمًا فينتابه شعور قوي بخيبة الأمل”
“¿Qué es importante y que no lo es? Nunca se puede decir. Hemos de fijarnos en los menores detalles.”
“I never prophesy," he declared pompously. "It is true that I have the habit of being always right - but I do not boast of it.”
“You tell your lies and you think nobody knows. But there are two people who know. Yes - two people. One is le bon Dieu -" He raised a hand to heaven, and then settling himself back in his chair and shutting his eyelids, he murmured comfortably: "And the other is Hercule Poirot.”
“Recuerde que en esta vida las cosas no son tan bonitas como parecen a primera vista.”
“Bueno, debe ser que el amor no logra adueñarse de nosotros hasta que tenemos cierta edad.”
“Todos nos vemos en el espejo de distintos ángulos, pero estamos todos ante él, y por lo tanto vemos también lo mismo.”
“El destino parece a veces burlarse de los serers humanos complaciéndose en descubrir lo que éstos quisieran conservar secreto.”
“There was a thing called Heaven; but all the same they used to drink enormous quantities of alcohol."
...
"There was a thing called the soul and a thing called immortality."
...
"But they used to take morphia and cocaine."
...
"Two thousand pharmacologists and biochemists were subsidized in A.F. 178."
...
"Six years later it was being produced commercially. The perfect drug."
...
"Euphoric, narcotic, pleasantly hallucinant."
...
"All the advantages of Christianity and alcohol; none of their defects."
...
"Take a holiday from reality whenever you like, and come back without so much as a headache or a mythology."
...
"Stability was practically assured.”
“Boys will be boys, and ballplayers will always be arrested adolescents at heart. The proof comes in the mid-afternoon of an early spring training day, when 40 percent of the New York Mets’ starting rotation—Mike Pelfrey and I—hop a chain-link fence to get onto a football field not far from Digital Domain. We have just returned from Dick’s Sporting Goods, where we purchased a football and a tee. We are here to kick field goals. Long field goals. A day before, we were all lying on the grass stretching and guys started talking about football and field-goal kickers, and David Wright mentioned something about the remarkable range of kickers these days. I can kick a fifty-yard field goal, Pelfrey says. You can not, Wright says. You don’t think so? You want to bet? You give me five tries and I’ll put three of them through. One hundred bucks says you can’t, David says. This is going to be the easiest money I ever make. I am Pelf’s self-appointed big brother, always looking out for him, and I don’t want him to go into this wager cold. So I suggest we get a ball and tee and do some practicing. We get back from Dick’s but find the nearby field padlocked, so of course we climb over the fence. At six feet two inches and 220 pounds, I get over without incident, but seeing Pelf hoist his big self over—all six feet seven inches and 250 pounds of him—is much more impressive. Pelf’s job is to kick and my job is to chase. He sets up at the twenty-yard line, tees up the ball, and knocks it through—kicking toe-style, like a latter-day Lou Groza. He backs up to the twenty-five and then the thirty, and boots several more from each distance. Adding the ten yards for the end zone, he’s now hit from forty yards and is finding his range. Pretty darn good. He insists he’s got another ten yards in his leg. He hits from forty-five, and by now he’s probably taken fifteen or seventeen hard kicks and reports that his right shin is getting sore. We don’t consider stopping. Pelf places the ball on the tee at the forty-yard line: a fifty-yard field goal. He takes a half dozen steps back, straight behind the tee, sprints up, and powers his toe into the ball … high … and far … and just barely over the crossbar. That’s all that is required. I thrust both my arms overhead like an NFL referee. He takes three more and converts on a second fifty-yarder. You are the man, Pelf, I say. Adam Vinatieri should worry for his job. That’s it, Pelf says. I can’t even lift my foot anymore. My shin is killing me. We hop back over the fence, Pelf trying to land as lightly as a man his size can land. His shin hurts so much he can barely put pressure on the gas pedal. He’s proven he can hit a fifty-yard field goal, but I go into big-brother mode and tell him I don’t want him kicking any more field goals or stressing his right leg any further. I convince him to drop the bet with David. The last thing you need is to start the season on the DL because you were kicking field goals, I say. Can you imagine if the papers got ahold of that one? The wager just fades away. David doesn’t mind; he gets a laugh at the story of Pelf hopping the fence and practicing, and drilling long ones.”
“No one could say it was my choice to kill the twins, any more than it was my decision to bring them into the world.”
“Present us with a silver cup for something when you're a filthy rich lawyer, I dare say? Yes. You'll be a lawyer. Magnificent memory. Sense of logic, no imagination and no brains.”
“You’d better be all right or I will tie you to a tree and cover you with hallucinogenic frogs. Tamarin, please wake up.”
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