Poirot (TV Series)

Murder on the Orient Express (2010)

David Suchet: Hercule Poirot

Photos 

Quotes 

• Hercule Poirot : [furious]  You people! With your kangaroo jury, your kangaroo justice! You had no right to take the law into your own hands!

  Hildegarde Schmidt : M-m-monsieur Poirot, she was *five years old*!

  Caroline Hubbard : We were good civilized people, and then evil got over the wall, and we looked to the law for justice, and the law let us down.

  Hercule Poirot : No! No, you behave like this and we become just... savages in the street! The juries and executioners, they elect themselves! No, it is medieval! The rule of law, it must be held high and if it falls you pick it up and hold it even higher! For all of society, all civilized people will have nothing to shelter them if it is destroyed!

• Mary Debenham : You said of the woman in Istanbul that she knew the rules of her culture and knew what breaking them would mean. So did Cassetti.

  Hercule Poirot : [harshly]  And so do you!

  Mary Debenham : When you've been denied justice... you are incomplete. It feels that God has abandoned you in a stark place. I asked God... I think we all did... what we should do, and he said do what is right. And I thought if I did, it would make me complete again.

  Hercule Poirot : [coldly]  And are you?

  Mary Debenham : [long pause, then]  But I did what was right.

• Greta Ohlsson : There is a higher justice than the rule of law, monsieur!

  Hercule Poirot : Then you let *God* administer it... not *you*!

  Greta Ohlsson : And when he doesn't? When he creates a Hell on Earth for those wronged? When priests who are supposed to act in his name forgive what must never be forgiven? Jesus said, "Let those without sin throw the first stone."

  Hercule Poirot : Oui!

  Greta Ohlsson : Well, we were without sin, monsieur! *I* was without sin!

• Hercule Poirot : Then the whole business with this train... the berth bought for a "Mr. Harris"... so no outsider boarded... the red kimono... the watch... All but a farce, was it not, Linda Arden, to make a mockery of Poirot?

  Caroline Hubbard : You were our first piece of of bad luck.

• Pierre Michel : Monsieur Poirot, how would you like your eggs?

  Hercule Poirot : Two, boiled, and *exactly* the same size, s'il vous plaît.

• Hercule Poirot : [to Ratchett]  I do not play poker with you, monsieur.

• John Arbuthnot : Now you listen, Poirot... by all accounts this man deserved to die last night... but I would have been happier if he'd been convicted by a jury!

  Hercule Poirot : I see. Twelve good men and true?

  John Arbuthnot : The civilized way.

• Hercule Poirot : [Concerning Ratchett]  Was he, in your opinion, a gentleman?

  Edward Masterman : Nothing of the kind, but he had money. Put a sewer rat in a suit, and he's still a sewer rat; he's just in a suit.

• [first lines] 

  Hercule Poirot : No! Lieutenant, you lie to Poirot. You say that you were in the barracks by midnight, but Poirot has proved this to be false. At a quarter to one in the morning you were seen over two miles away in the company of the woman who died. General, this is not a murder, as is suggested by the Palestinian police, but I do believe the lieutenant lied about his whereabouts, first out of panic and then, by sticking to this *lie*, but reinforcing it with *lie* after *lie* for weeks and weeks of deception, he has heaped suspicion and a deep shame on himself, his regiment, and his wife. General, the neck of this woman was not broken by the human hand but by a fall.

• Hercule Poirot : [to Mary Debenham, who has refused to ansswer his question claiming she is "not at liberty" to do so]  At liberty? Mademoiselle, you will give me a good answer, or when the Yugoslav police arrive you will not *be* at liberty! Now give me an answer!

  Xavier Bouc : Steady on, Poirot!

  Mary Debenham : I am not at liberty to tell you!

  [she starts to get up and leave] 

  Hercule Poirot : Mademoiselle, do not cross me!

• Hector MacQueen : [talking about his father]  Casseti's connections threatened to kill me - his son - if he didn't do what they asked! Wha... what was he supposed to do?

  Hercule Poirot : He was supposed to have ensured that justice was done in an open court, monsieur.

• Hector MacQueen : I met Mr Ratchett when I was on my uppers in, um... Iraq we call it now, don't we? He needed a personal assistant who was good with languages, which I am, and he paid well.

  Hercule Poirot : And he could not speak the languages?

  Hector MacQueen : Not a word. A little pidgin Italian, which even Italian pigeons would have found hard to understand.

• Lieutenant Blanchflower : If I may speak out of turn, sir... I think it unjust that one mistake cost Lieutenant Morris so dearly. He was a good man... who was involved in an accident.

  Hercule Poirot : [turns to face him]  Unjust?

  Lieutenant Blanchflower : He made an error of judgement. He was a good man.

  Hercule Poirot : It did not have to end in suicide.

  Lieutenant Blanchflower : I think he believed he had no choice.

  Hercule Poirot : A man like your friend, Lieutenant, always has choice, and it was his choice to lie that brought him into difficulty with the law.

  [He turns away] 

• Mary Debenham : You know nothing, monsieur! You don't touch her!

  Hercule Poirot : [softly]  Shall I tell you what I know? Huh, Mademoiselle Debenham, shall I?