The Saint Closes the Case Quotes

“I am an absurd idealist. But I believe that all that must come true. For, unless it comes true, the world will be laid desolate. And I believe that it can come true. I believe that, by the grace of God, men will awake presently and be men again, and colour and laughter and splendid living will return to a grey civilisation. But that will only come true because a few men will believe in it, and fight for it, and fight in its name against everything that sneers and snarls at that ideal.”
― Leslie Charteris, The Last Hero

“And it is also the story of Norman Kent, who was his friend, and how at one moment in that adventure he held the fate of two nations, if not of all Europe, in his hands; how he accounted for that stewardship; and how, one quiet summer evening, in a house by the Thames, with no melodrama and no heroics, he fought and died for an idea.”
― Leslie Charteris, The Saint Closes the Case

“You’re welcome—as the actress said to the bishop on a particularly auspicious occasion. But why haven’t you brought Angel Face with you, sweetheart?”
― Leslie Charteris, The Saint Closes the Case

“The road out of London on the north-east is one of the less pleasant ways of finding the open country. For one thing, it is infested with miles of tramway, crawling, interminable, blocking the traffic, maddening to the man at the wheel of a fast car—especially maddening to the man in a hurry at the wheel of a fast car.”
― Leslie Charteris, The Saint Closes the Case

“Once again the Saint had proved, to his own sufficient satisfaction, as he had proved many times in his life before, that desperate dilemmas are usually best solved by desperate measures and that intelligent foolhardiness will often get by where too much discretion betrays valour into the mulligatawny. And”
― Leslie Charteris, The Saint Closes the Case

“And the Sunday trains are as slow as a Scotchman saying good-bye to a bawbee…Look here, the only one you’ll have time to catch now is the 4:”
― Leslie Charteris, The Saint Closes the Case

“Nothing is won without sacrifice.”
― Leslie Charteris, The Saint Closes the Case

“oh, Pat, dear lass, I love you too much to be unselfish! I love your eyes and your lips and your voice and the way your hair shines like gold in the sun. I love your wisdom and your understanding and your kindliness and your courage and your laughter. I love you with every thought of my mind and every minute of my life. I love you so much that it hurts. I couldn’t face losing you. Without you, I just shouldn’t have anything to live for . . . And I don’t know where we shall go or what we shall do or what we shall find in the days that are coming. But I do know that if I never find more than I’ve got already – just you, lass! – I shall have had more than my life . . .’ ‘I shall have had more than mine, Simon . . . God bless you!”
― Leslie Charteris, The Saint Closes the Case

“We believe that for this diabolical discovery to take its place in the armament of the nations of Europe, at a time when jealousies and fears and the rumours of wars are again lifting their heads, would be a refinement of ‘civilisation’ which the world could well be spared. You may say that the exclusive possession of this invention would confirm Great Britain in an unassailable supremacy, and perhaps thereby secure the peace of Europe. We answer that no secret can be kept for ever. The sword is two-edged. And, as Vargan answered me by saying, ‘Science is international’ – so I answer you by saying that humanity is also international. We are content to be judged by the verdict of history, when all the facts are made known. But in accomplishing what we have accomplished, we have put you in the way of learning our identities; and that, as you will see, must be an almost fatal blow to such an organisation as mine. Nevertheless, I believe that in time I shall find a way for us to continue the work that we have set ourselves to do. We regret nothing that we have already done. Our only regret is that we should be scattered before we have had time to do more. Yet we believe that we have done much good, and that this last crime of ours is the best of all. Au revoir! Simon Templar (‘The Saint’).”
― Leslie Charteris, The Saint Closes the Case

“Oh, God!’ he groaned. ‘God help me!”
― Leslie Charteris, The Saint Closes the Case

“You asked God to help you, old boy,’ she said. ‘Why shouldn’t I ask the men who have come?”
― Leslie Charteris, The Saint Closes the Case

“Dear,’ he said, ‘I’m not complaining. We don’t live in a magnificent age, but I’ve done my best to make life magnificent as I see it – to live my ideal of the happy warrior. But you made that possible. You made me seek and fight for the tremendous things. Battle and sudden death – yes, but battle and sudden death in the name of peace and life and love. You know I love you, Pat .”
― Leslie Charteris, The Saint Closes the Case

“the wrath of saints can be a far more dreadful thing than the wrath of sinners.”
― Leslie Charteris, The Saint Closes the Case

“Once again the Saint had proved, to his own sufficient satisfaction, as he had proved many times in his life before, that desperate dilemmas are usually best solved by desperate measures and that intelligent foolhardiness will often get by where too much discretion betrays valour into the mulligatawny.”
― Leslie Charteris, The Saint Closes the Case