Quotes from Louise Penny

relationship never starts with a fist to the face, or an insult. If it did there'd be no second date. It always starts gently. Kindly. The other person draws you in. To trust them. To need them. And then they slowly turn. Little by little, increasing the heat. Until you're trapped.

Kindness beats cruelty.

Dr. Vincent Gilbert lived in the heart of the forest. Away from human conflict, but also away from human contact. It was a compromise he was more than happy to make.

Life is choice. All day, everyday. Who we talk to, where we sit, what we say, how we say it. And our lives become defined by our choices. It's as simple and as complex as that. And as powerful.

The morning after their deaths, Armand had gone into their room. The scent of them, the sense of them, almost too much to bear. The clothing. The book. The bookmark. The bedside clock, still ticking. He'd thought that strange. Surely it should have stopped.

The mess in the drawers was in contrast to the neat desktop. Many people's lives were like that. The neat room and the messy closet. The well-ordered counters and the chaos in the cabinets.

Character is not created in times like these. It's revealed.

Life is choice. All day, every day. Who we talk to, where we sit, what we say, how we say it. And our lives become defined by our choices. It's as simple and as complex as that. And as powerful. So when I'm observing, that's what I'm watching for. The choices people make.

But never, ever mistake kindness for weakness.

Maybe this was now normal for Olivier. Maybe every now and then he simply wept. Not in pain or sadness. The tears were just overwhelming memories, rendered into water, seeping out.

Why be a saint unless you could also be a martyr?

Fear might stop some people from committing murder, but he knew for certain fear was what drove most people to kill. It was what nested below all the other emotions. It was what twisted and turned the other emotions into something sick. It was an alchemist and could turn daylight into night, joy into despair. Fear, once taken root, blocked the sun. And Gamache knew what grew in that darkness. He searched for it every day.

An unsuspected yearning uncovered, discovered. For a simpler time and a simpler life. Before Internet, and climate change, and terrorism. When neighbors worked together, and separation was not a topic or an issue or wise.

Ruth lost her footing. Haniya grabbed her before she fell. She held Ruth's hand for the rest of the way, and wondered if maybe the key was not in being held, but in holding.

Everything he let go of had claw marks on it.

I went through a period in my life when I had no friends, when the phone never rang, when I thought I would die from loneliness. I know that the real blessing here isn't that I have a book published, but that I have so many people to thank.

Some might argue that Three Pines itself isn't real, and they'd be right, but limited in their view. The village does not exist, physically. But I think of it as existing in ways that are far more important and powerful. Three Pines is a state of mind. When we choose tolerance over hate. Kindness over cruelty. Goodness over bullying. When we choose to be hopeful, not cynical. Then we live in Three Pines.

Didn't anyone die a normal death in Three Pines? And even their murders weren't normal. Couldn't they just haul off and stab each other, or use a gun or a bat? No. It was always something convoluted. Complicated. Very unQuébécois. The Québécois were straightforward, clear. If they liked you they hugged. When they murdered you they just whacked you over the head. Boom, done. Convicted. Next.

Isabelle [Lacoste] sat quietly for a moment, looking into the naked woods. Only in the winter was it possible to see both the forest and the trees. Homicide, she thought, was a perpetual winter.

And as he felt the final beat of Sonny's heart Gamache had had the impression it wasn't that his old heart had stopped but that Sonny had finally given it all away.

Evil is unspectacular and always human, Auden had written. And shares our bed and eats at our own table.

in Beauvoir's experience losers were the most dangerous people. Because eventually they got to the stage where they had nothing more to lose.

FINE stands for Fucked up, Insecure, Neurotic and Egotistical. I'm FINE.

All my works have vessels of some sort. Containers. Sometimes it's in the negative space, sometimes it's more obvious ... He's very loyal. He puts everything he has into one thing. one interest, one hobby, one friend, one love. I'm his love and it scares the shit out of me ... He's poured all his love into me. I'm his vessel. But suppose I crack? Suppose I break? Suppose I die? What would he do?