Sad Cypress (Hercule Poirot, #22)

by Agatha Christie

You told me once that I wasn’t a good mixer. I’m afraid it’s true. I find most of the human race extraordinarily repulsive. They probably reciprocate this feeling.

I have long felt that you are one of the only really satisfactory representatives of humanity.

My type of compliment.

The thawing of Mrs. Bishop was no easy matter. For Mrs. Bishop, a lady of Conservative habits and views, strongly disapproved of foreigners. And a foreigner most indubitably Hercule Poirot was.

Hercule Poirot said: “Ah, but life is like that! It does not permit you to arrange and order it as you will. It will not permit you to escape emotion, to live by the intellect and by reason! You cannot say, ‘I will feel so much and no more.’ Life, Mr. Welman, whatever else it is, is not reasonable!”

Mr. Seddon winced. Then he became wrathful in a dry legal fashion. “That,” he said, “is a most improper question. Most improper.”

“Ah, it’s not for me to be saying that,” said Nurse O’Brien, betraying, however, every symptom of being about to do so.