Quotes from Louise Penny

He was like an addict before a fix. Book freaks are like that, and not just old guys. Look at kids lining up for the latest installment of their favorite books. Stories, they're addictive." Gamache

Gamache had been to Three Pines on previous investigations and each time he'd had the feeling he belonged. It was a powerful feeling. After all, what else did people really want except to belong? He

Champlain missing was so much more potent than Champlain found.

They kill. To feel safe. It almost never worked.

She'd forgotten to love, but she also forgot to hate. (about Clara's mother, who had dementia)

The reason Armand Gamache could go there was because it wasn't totally foreign to him. He knew it because he'd seen his own burned terrain, he'd walked off the familiar and comfortable path inside his own head and heart and seen what festered in the dark. And one day Jean Guy Beauvoir would look at his own monsters, and then be able to recognize others. And maybe this was the day and this was the case. He hoped so.

While there were few things more terrifying than being outside in a blizzard, there were few things more comforting than being inside.

This used to be my drug of choice. In my teens my drug of choice was acceptance, in my twenties it was approval, in my thirties it was love, in my forties it was Scotch.

But being essentially a dumpster fire herself, she was familiar with flames.

A will, an estate, could become about more than money, property, possessions. Who was left the most could be interpreted as who was loved the most. There were different sorts of greed. Of need.

walked deep into the shadow, deep into the longhouse where all his experiences and memories lived…

All Armand's life Honoré had lived in light. Unchallenged….Armand put out his hand, and touched the door. The last room, the last door [in the longhouse]. The last territory to explore didn't hold monstrous hate or bitterness or rancid resentments. It held love. Blinding, beautiful love.

A mind with absolutely no insight into itself, a mind filled with purpose and delusion.

They were home. He always felt a bit like a snail, but instead of carrying his home on his back, he carried it in his arms.

Recruiters, for terrorist cells and police forces and armies, relied on this simple truth: if you got people young enough, they could be made to do just about anything.

He listened to people, took notes, gathered evidence, like all his colleagues. But he did one more thing. He gathered feelings. He collected emotions. Because murder was deeply human.

struck. Once. And into that blow he put his childhood, his grief, his loss. He put his mother's sorrow and his sister's longing. The menorah, weighed down with that, crushed the Hermit's skull.

I've realised that anyone can be a critic but it takes a remarkable person to offer praise.

That was why she was happy. He now knew that happiness ad kindness went together. There was not one without the other. For Jean-Guy it was a struggle. For Annie it seemed natural.

He had his treasure, but finally all he wanted was his family. And peace.

Do you know the sums that I do?" "I count my blessings.

True Québécois walked in the middle of the road.

Armand Gamache was never more glad he'd married this woman, who made his battles theirs.

But then, Armand Gamache thought, where else would you find darkness but right up against the light? What greater triumph for evil than to ruin a garden?