Quotes from Louise Penny

When senior officers start shooting each other, it's time to leave," said Gamache. "I'm sure it's somewhere in the regulations.

Sometimes the only way up is down. Sometimes the only way forward is to back up.

Memories can kill, Yvette. The past can reach right up and grab you and drag you to a place you shouldn't be. Like a burning building.

People instinctively let down their guard when they saw a limp, an illness, a flaw in someone else. Not out of compassion but because it made them feel superior. Stronger. Those people, Gamache knew, did not always last long. It was not a useful instinct.

The Chief had once told him about the behavior of gorillas when faced with an attack. They met it head on, staring down the enemy. But every now and then they'd reach out to touch the gorilla beside them. To make sure they were not alone. Keeping his eyes on the road, Jean-Guy reached out and touched Gamache's shoulder.

Ruth believed in precycling. An evolution on recycling. She made use of things before people threw them out.

Long dead and buried in another town My mother isn't finished with me yet.

We can all fall," said the abbot. "But perhaps not as hard and not as fast and not as far as someone who spends his life on the ascent.

he'd come to agree with Sister Prejean that no one was as bad as the worst thing they'd done.

Jeez," said Beauvoir. "The Inquisition. I didn't expect that." "No one does," said Gamache.

Death sits on my shoulder like a crow … Or a judge, muttering about sluts and punishment. And licking his lips.

We're used to the film versions of psychopaths. The clearly crazies. But most psychopaths are clever. They have to be. They know how to mimic human behavior. How to pretend to care, while not actually feeling anything except perhaps rage and an overwhelming and near-perpetual sense of entitlement. That they've been wronged. They get what they want mostly through manipulation.

Peter always had a 'best before' date stamped on his forehead," said Ruth. "People who live in their heads do. They start out well enough, but eventually they run out of ideas. And if there's no imagination, no inspiration to fall back on? Then what?

If ever two men were made for cahoots, it was these two. They were cahootites.

There are four things that lead to wisdom. You ready for them?' She nodded, wondering when the police work would begin. "They are four sentences we learn to say, and mean." Gamache held up his hand as a fist and raised a finger with each point. 'I don't know. I need help. I'm sorry. I was wrong'.

A loss like this was a progression of miseries, like stepping-stones. Until they reached the other side. The new continent. Where the terrible reality lived, and the sun never fully came out again. But where, with time and help, they might find acceptance and, with that, peace.

Hope itself wasn't necessarily kind. Or a good thing.

Yes, I do. The ones who aren't growing and evolving, who are standing still. They're the ones who rarely got better.' 'Yes, that was it,' said Gamache. 'They waited for life to happen to them. They waited for someone to save them. Or heal them. They did nothing for themselves.' 'Ben,' said Peter.

He stared for ten seconds or more, which, when eating a chocolate cake isn't much, but when staring, is.

A brave man in a brave country. It was easy to be brave, when the country was also brave. But what happened if it wasn't? If it was corrupt, and grotesque, and greedy, and violent?

transferring her hunger to eat into a hunger to hurt. He didn't turn round. She knew she should let it go, but it was too late. She'd chewed the insult over, torn it apart and swallowed it. The insult was part of her now.

How often we made our worst fears come true, by behaving as though they already were.

Armand Gamache had seen the worst. But he'd also seen the best. Often in the same person.

They spoke in semaphore, all punctuation unnecessary. "You?" "Great." They'd trimmed the language to its essentials. Before long it would just be consonants. Then silence.