This is a list of quotes from the novel that gave me insight into the character:
“the third woman, a stout, pleasant-faced, elderly woman who was talking in a slow clear monotone which showed no signs of pausing for breath or coming to a stop” (26).
“The elderly American lady’s voice rose shrill and plaintive” (28).
“Poirot, by now, knew all about Mrs. Hubbard’s daughter. Everyone on the train who could understand English did! How she and her husband were on the staff of a big American college in Smyrna and how this was Mrs. Hubbard’s first journey to the East, and what she thought of the Turks and their slipshod ways and the condition of their roads” (33).
“You know, I’m dead scared of that man [Ratchett]…My daughter always says I’m very intuitive” (33).
“I guess I’ll go right to bed and read” (34).
“impatient…insistent and voluble” (37).
“Mrs. Hubbard was loudest in her lamentations. ‘My daughter said it would be the easiest way in the world. Just sit in the train until I got to Parrus…And my boat sails the day after tomorrow” (39).
“Mrs. Hubbard was off again. ‘There isn’t anybody knows a thing on this train. And nobody’s trying to do anything. Just a pack of useless foreigners” (39).
“He married the daughter of Linda Arden, the most famous tragic American actress of her day” (70).
“‘You’ll excuse me, sir, but the elderly American lady is in what I might describe as a state, sir. She’s saying she knows all about the murderer. She’s in a very excitable condition, sir” (94).
“Mrs. Hubbard arrived in the dining car in such a state of breathless excitement that she was hardly able to articulate her words” (96).
“Mrs. Hubbard plumped heavily down on to the seat opposite to him” (96).
“She paused to give dramatic emphasis to her words” (96).
“Mrs. Hubbard sighed convulsively” (99).
“She took out in turn two large clean handkerchiefs, a pair of horn-rimmed glasses, a bottle of aspirin, a packet of Glauber’s salts, a celluloid tube of bright green peppermints, a bunch of keys, a pair of scissors, a book of American Express cheques, a snapshot of an extraordinarily plain-looking child, some letters, five strings of pseudo Oriental beads and a small object—a button” (99).
“‘I just don’t know what’s the matter with all you people. Seems as though you don’t do anything but make objections” (99-100).
“Dr. Constantine sniggered and Mrs. Hubbard immediately froze him with a glance” (101).
“No. They moved in a very exclusive circle. But I’ve always heard that Mrs. Armstrong was a perfectly lovely woman and that her husband worshiped her.”
“I was on terms of friendship with her mother, the actress, Linda Arden. Linda Arden was a great genius, one of the greatest tragic actresses in the world. As Lady Macbeth, as Magda, there was no one to touch her. I was not only an admirer of her art, I was a personal friend…she is alive, but she lives in complete retirement. Her health is very delicate, she has to lie on a sofa most of the time” (116-117).
“this is a crime very carefully planned and staged…It is a crime that shows traces of a cool, resourceful, deliberate brain” (146).
“Mrs. Hubbard has been telling everyone” (149).
“Behind this business, I am convinced, there is a cool, intelligent, resourceful brain” (154).
“‘What is that noise that approaches?’ he cried. ‘It resembles a locomotive in motion.’ The noise drew nearer. It consisted of shrill cries and protests in a woman’s voice. The door at the end of the dining car flew open. Mrs. Hubbard burst in” (167).
“I’ve always been vurry, vurry sensitive ever since a child. The mere sight of blood—ugh—why even now I come over queer when I think about it” (168).
“Mrs. Hubbard showed signs of tears once more” (175).
“I don’t know that I’m so set on tea…I think I would like some coffee” (175).
“Mrs. Hubbard was traveling with the minimum luggage—a hat box, a cheap suitcase, and a well-burdened travelling bag” (175).
“I think she is one of those to whom someone to talk to is a necessity of the first water” (183).
“already the poor lady was upset by the journey and leaving her daughter” (183).
“a theatrical kind of crime like this” (187).
“It was Linda Arden, and she was a very celebrated actress—among other things a Shakespearean actress. Think of As You Like It—the Forest of Arden and Rosalind. It was there she got the inspiration for her acting name. Linda Arden, the name by which she was known all over the world, was not her real name. It may have been Goldenberg—she quite likely had central European blood in her veins—a strain of Jewish, perhaps” (216-217).
“Even the loquacious Mrs. Hubbard was unnaturally quiet. She murmured as she sat: ‘I don’t feel as though I’ve got the heart to eat anything,’ and then partook of everything offered her” (219).
“She was the true daughter of that mother, the emotional force of whose acting had moved huge audiences to tears” (221).
“The Swedish lady was still weeping and Mrs. Hubbard was comforting her” (249).
“Then, in a soft rich dreamy voice”
“I always fancied myself in comedy parts”
“She went on still dreamily”
“She shifted her position a little and looked straight at Poirot”
(262)
“I was just crazy with griefs” (263).
“If it must all come out, can’t you lay the blame upon me and me only? I would have stabbed the man twelve times willingly…Society had condemned him; we were only carrying out the sentence” (264).
“Her voice was wonderful echoing through the crowded space—that deep, emotional, heart-stirring voice that had thrilled many a New York audience” (264).
Christie, Agatha. Murder on the Orient Express. HarperCollins, 2011.