Words had become to him a means of obscuring facts — not of revealing them. He was an adept in the art of the useful phrase — that is to say the phra… - Agatha Christie

One has occasionally to pocket one's pride and readjust one's ideas.

Was bad language used?” asked Colonel Melchett.
“It depends on what you call bad language.”
“Could you understand it?” I asked.
“Of course I could understand it.”
“Then it couldn’t have been bad language,” I said.
Mrs. Price Ridley looked at me suspiciously.
“A refined lady,” I explained, “is naturally unacquainted with bad language.

Inside, it was clear that the books owned the shop rather than the other way about. Everywhere they had run wild and taken possession of their habitat, breeding and multiplying and clearly lacking any strong hand to keep them down.