Pied Piper Quotes

“You can call a sunset by a filthy name, but you do not spoil its beauty, monsieur.”
― Nevil Shute, Pied Piper

“Then the patience borne of seventy years of disappointments came to his aid;”
― Nevil Shute, Pied Piper

“And then, Monsieur votre fils, he was well too? Well, they had to know. He turned away from her blindly. ‘Madame,’ he said, ‘mon fils est mort. Il est tombé de son avion, au-dessus de Heligoland Bight.”
― Nevil Shute, Pied Piper

“I cannot understand the reasoning of children. She said that she is glad that she has not got to say ‘Heil Hitler’ any more, because the Führer wears a moustache.”
― Nevil Shute, Pied Piper

“Finally he got up, feeling uncommonly well. It did not occur to him that this was because he had a job to do, for the first time in many months.”
― Nevil Shute, Pied Piper

“Americans are like that.’ The other stared at him incredulously. ‘It would cost a great deal of money to provide for a child, perhaps for years. One does not do that lightly for a foreign child of which one knows nothing.’ ‘It’s just the sort of thing they do do,’ said the old man. ‘They would pour out their money in a cause like that.”
― Nevil Shute, Pied Piper

“Tell us,’ she said gently. ‘Would you like to grow up with horses? Or would you rather buy things and sell them for a profit?’ After all, she thought, it would be difficult for him to go against the characteristics of his race. ‘Would you rather do that?’ The boy looked up at her. ‘I want to learn to shoot with a rifle from a very long way away,’ he said, ‘because you can do that from the hills when they are on the road. And I want to learn to throw a knife hard and straight. That is best in the darkness, in the narrow streets, because it does not make a noise.”
― Nevil Shute, Pied Piper

“The corporal said, “Place called Brest. Not the kind of name I’d like to call a town, myself, but that’s the way these Froggies are. Officer said to go there if we got cut off, and we’d get the lorry shipped back home from there.”
― Nevil Shute, Pied Piper

“He met the femme de chambre upon the landing. ‘I have made up my mind,’ he said heavily. ‘La petite Rose may come with us to England; I will take her to her father. She must be ready to start to-morrow morning, at seven o’clock.”
― Nevil Shute, Pied Piper

“A placard nailed upon a post, CHIEN MECHANT, warned him, but did not warn the children. The dog, an enormous brindled creature, leaped out at them to the limit of his chain, raising a terrific clamour. The children scattered back,”
― Nevil Shute, Pied Piper

“it was incredible that this thing should be happening to him. It was what he had read of and had found some difficulty in crediting. It was what they were supposed to do to Jews in concentration camps. It could not be true.”
― Nevil Shute, Pied Piper

“You do not understand. Over there, they want to help us. If they make a home for children, refugees from Europe, they feel that they are doing something worth while. And they are.”
― Nevil Shute, Pied Piper

“He was just entering the club ahead of me, a tall and rather emaciated man of about seventy, a little unsteady on his feet. He tripped over the doormat as he went in and stumbled forward; the hall porter jumped out and caught him by the elbow.”
― Nevil Shute, Pied Piper

“A little boy of five or six was standing there, in fact, utterly motionless. He was dressed in grey, grey stockings above the knee, grey shorts, and a grey jersey. He was standing absolutely still, staring down the road towards them. His face was a dead, greyish white in colour. Howard caught his breath at the sight of him, and said very softly: ‘Oh, my God!’ He had never seen a child looking like that, in all his seventy years. He crossed quickly over to him,”
― Nevil Shute, Pied Piper

“This may have been what John and I were brought together for,’ she said. ‘In thirty years the world may need one of these little ones.’ She paused. ‘It may be Ronnie or it may be Willem, or it may be little Pierre who does great things for the world,’ she said. ‘But when that happens, monsieur, it will be because I met your son to show him Paris, and we fell in love.”
― Nevil Shute, Pied Piper

“I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills,” he said, “from whence cometh my help.”
― Nevil Shute, Pied Piper