Nå må jeg lytte til den siste kassetten som lå i kisten til […]. Hvem snakker? Blanche? Colette? Mamma? Alle tre? Jeg holder den i hånden. Etter at jeg har hørt på den, skal jeg sette den sammen med de andre. Og jeg skal sørge for at de blir trygt bevart så lenge som mulig. De inneholder minnene våre, historien vår.

The Irish government is determined to enact a hate crime bill that is more draconian than Scotland's. We expect that one day an Irish woman who will not wheesht will face the same fate as Christina Ellingsen and Tonje Gjevjon of Norway. Both were threatened with three years in prison under Norwegian hate speech law for pointing out that men cannot be women, girls, mothers or lesbians. Ultimately the investigation did not lead to prosecution, but we know that the process itself is the punishment.y [«Sisters across the water», Iseult White]

(Fra Aktuells besøk hos Rui-søstrene i 1955.)
Om Aktuells utsendte hadde noe greie på radio, ville Gurine og Ingerine vite først av alt. Den radioen de hadde fått like før jul, var gått i stykker, ikke en låt å høre. En tynn strimmel av plaster var klistret opp på stasjonsnavnet Oslo så de lettere skulle finne den rette stasjonen. Bølgevelgeren var slått på mellombølge. En rask omdreining til langbølgen, og spinkle toner trillet ut i stua. Gurine og Ingerine slo hendene sammen i beundrende takknemlighet: "Å nei, å nei, han har stelt i stand radioen vår du!"

Hvis fisker kunne skrike, hadde jeg aldri fisket.

De pratet ikke i utrengsmål, noe som tydeligvis var skikken her oppe, og når de unntaksvis sa et eller annet, var det på finsk. Språket lød tonløst og dystert, det var som spesiallaget for dette ødslige landskapet, med sine fremmedartede diftonger og kraftig rullende rrr-er. Hver setning rullet liksom utfor bakke og sluttet i et lavere toneleie enn den begynte. Alt syntes bare å bli verre, smerten større, været kaldere og nøden bitrere. Til slutt gjensto bare den store stillheten ved livets slutt. Nede i sør var proletarene kvikke i tanke og tale, der skravlet de i vei og kranglet seg hese så snart de fikk sjansen. Men her oppe gikk det mil mellom hvert ord.

Før betydde religionsfrihet den enkeltes frihet til selv å velge tro - inkludert friheten til å velge vekk religionen - men når man nå påberoper seg religionsfriheten, er det som et krav om at ens egen religion må skånes for kritikk.

Det er lurt av en leder å være raus med de gode tilbakemeldingene for å skape en anerkjennende kultur på arbeidsplassen, for å stimulere mestringstillit og fordi folk trenger å kjenne seg akseptert før de blir i stand til å kunne ta imot kritikk. Når vi kjenner oss akseptert og verdsatt, og bare da, kan kritikk fungere konstruktivt.

People feel that they are the autors of their thoughts and actions, and this is the only reason why there seems to be a problem of free will worth talking about.

As I put my hand out to reach for the handle, there is a moment, a single, piercing moment, when I am not truly sure who I am. Am I an actor, who has played the role of Poirot for a quarter of a century in seventy television films, or have I actually become this little man that the world, and I, love so much? Where do I stop, and where does he begin? It feels as if I am in a dream, watching me being me, and yet playing Poirot.
It is only when Tom Vaughan, the director of this very last film in the thirteenth and final series of Poirot films, shouts, 'Cut' at the top of his voice that I snap out of my reverie and back into the reality of the final five days of shooting of Dead Man's Folly, the last Poirot that I will ever make.
But apart from a kind of strange confusion, there is also a sense of achievement, because I know how fortunate I am to have had the opportunity to play such an astonishing character over all these years, and to see him blossom so dramatically around me, to see his exploits dubbed into more than fifty languages and broadcast in almost every country around the world. It is amazing, humbling, and the greatest present that I could ever have been given.

There would even be one last chance for Poirot to reveal something of his firm moral compass. At one point, he tells the former owner of Nasse House, Mrs Folliatt, played by the Irish-born actress Sinéad Cusack – wife of actor Jeremy Irons – that she knows who the killer is but is not prepared to say so, because she thinks that would be 'wrong - even wicked'. At that point, Poirot struggles to keep his temper: 'As wicked as the killing of a fourteen-year-old girl?' he demands. When she replies that the matter is 'over and done', Poirot attacks her as fiercely as he did the passengers trapped in the Orient Express. 'It is never finished with a murder. Jamais!'

As we started shooting, I was not quite sure what to expect. Would the memories of the past twenty-five years ambush me every day, the ghosts of so many stories and so many characters stalk me as I climbed back into my padding and spats for the final time? I really did not know, but one thing I was certain of: I was determined to make this last film a true celebration of the whole experience of being Poirot. I knew I would mourn him when he was gone – I thought millions of other people would too – but I was not going to allow him to depart without the most joyful experience I could bring to him. This was my final chance to show just how much I loved and admired the little man.

I honestly had no idea how they were going to turn out. In fact, I was privately rather frightened that they might be boring. I remember thinking to myself that these films were not actionpacked like The Professionals or The Sweeney, both hugely successful in their time, nor were they comparable to the more recent Morse and Wexford series. Were they going to be entertaining enough for an audience in 1989?

What was so charming was that Suzanne, and every other actor and actress who came into the series, was genuinely thrilled to be in a Poirot story. They all seemed to have known and read Poirot as a child, whereas I didn't know him at all to begin with, even though I was becoming him more completely every single day.

Den sanna kärleken är tystlåten och privat, en pågående erfarenhet av beständig glädje i vardagen.

"En sommer uten plenklipp, så deilig det skal bli." [sa Margo] Otto svarte ikke. For ingenting av det han ville svare, var for de andres ører, bare for Margos. Jeg synes vi har hatt det bra i huset vårt. Jeg har likt dagene våre sammen. Jeg har likt å arbeide ute i hagen og komme inn med jord under neglene for å ta en kopp kaffe sammen med deg. Jeg har likt tiden vi har hatt fra hverandre, avbruddene, fordi de fikk meg til å oppdage deg på nytt. Jeg ser ikke for meg hvordan den nye tiden vår i leiligheten skal kunne fylles, hvilke avbrudd vi får, eller hva vi skal gjøre uten dem, jeg ser ikke for meg hvem du og jeg blir på et nytt sted.
Alt dette hadde han forsøkt å si til Margo mange ganger, men det eneste hun hadde hørt, var at han elsket hagen, at han ikke kunne leve uten hagen, at den var det viktigste i livet hans. [...]
De skulle flytte om fem dager. Det var Margo som hadde bestemt at det skulle gå så fort, at i det øyeblikket leiligheten sto klar, måtte de flytte inn, rekke det før sommeren virkelig tok tak, før plenen måtte klippes enda en gang. Som om hun noensinne hadde klippet gresset.

Døden er en sving på landeveien
Å dø er bare å være ute av syne.
Jeg lytter og hører at du har levet
Før, slik jeg lever nå.

Jeg har hverken ambisjoner eller behov.
Å være dikter er ikke en ambisjon for meg.
Det er min måte å være alene på.

[...] and if I had to live my life again, I would have made a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least once a week; for perhaps the parts of my brain now atrophied [the loss of his higher aesthetic tastes] would thus have been kept active through use.

[...] [Lyell] strongly advised me never to get entangled in a controversy, as it rarely did any good and caused a miserable loss of time and temper.

The success of the 'Origin' may, I think, be attributed in large part to my having long before written two condensed sketches, and to my having finally abstracted a much larger manuscript, which was itself an abstract. By this means I was enabled to select the more striking facts and conclusions.

I had, also, during many years followed a golden rule, namely, that whenever a published fact, a new observation or thought came across me, which was opposed to my general results, to make a memorandum of it without fail and at once; for I had found by experience that such facts and thoughts were far more apt to escape from the memory than favourable ones.