Quotes from Louise Penny

All around are walls, for protection." Then her finger stopped its movement and rested on the soft center of her palm. "This is the pale." "So if you're beyond the pale…" "You're an outsider," said Myrna. "A threat." She slowly closed her hand.

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

Some people keep their darkness inside, and some hide their light. You, mon ami, almost certainly have a croissant in there.

Irene Finney, like many very elderly people, knew that the world was indeed flat. It had a beginning and an end. And she had come to the edge.

When Peter walked into a room he always swept it until he found Clara. And then he relaxed.

He knew in his heart that anything that offered such peace had great value.

life is loss,' said Myrna after a moment. 'Loss of parents, loss of loves, loss of jobs. So we have to find a higher meaning in our lives than these things and people. Otherwise we'll lose ourselves.

Have you noticed that more people seem to be dying than are being born? Bean asked, handing the section to Finney, who took it and nodded solemnly. "That means there's more for those of us still here." He handed the section back. "I don't want more," said Bean. "You will.

was always human and never pleasant and often misleading. Aid workers, when handing out food to starving people, quickly learn that the people fighting for it at the front are the people who need it least. It's the people sitting quietly at the back, too weak to fight, who need it the most. And so too with tragedy. The people who don't insist on their sorrow can often be the ones who feel it most strongly.

We love life, thought Reine-Marie as she watched Ruth and Rosa sitting side by side, not because we are used to living, but because we are used to loving. Nietzsche. How Armand would kid her if he knew she was quoting Nietzsche, even to herself.

He knew, as a man used to fear, the great danger of letting it take control. It distorted reality. Consumed reality. Fear created its own reality.

I had three chairs in my house: one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society." "My favorite quote from Thoreau is also from Walden," said Gamache. "A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone.

He felt like a mobile library. Where other investigators gathered fingerprints and evidence, he gathered books.

truth is on the march and nothing will stop it.

At this discovery Matthew Croft's legs gave way and he sank to the cold concrete floor, to a place no rhyming verse existed. He had finally been hurt beyond poetry.

Now she sat in front of him, nearly submerged under layers of thick sweaters and blankets. She looked like a laundry hamper without a head.

All year his mouth watered for the home-made Manoir Bellechasse lemonade. It tasted fresh and clean, sweet and tart. It tasted of sunshine and summer.

What was it Oscar Wilde said?" "I can resist everything except temptation.

What was that Milton quote we were raised with? "The mind is its own place, and in itself Can make a Heav'n of Hell, a Hell of Heav'n.

It was, he knew, a sign of End of Days. Ruth refusing booze.

Monarda was the zucchini of the flower world. It, too, figured prominently in the harvest market and, subsequently, the Thanksgiving bonfire, which would give off a hint of sweet bergamot so that it smelled as though every cottage in Three Pines was brewing Earl Grey tea.

The Chief believed if you sift through evil, at the very bottom you'll find good. He believed that evil has its limits. Beauvoir didn't. He believed that if you sift through good, you'll find evil. Without borders, without brakes, without limit.

Alcohol stole dignity and friends and family and livelihoods before finally taking the life. Alcohol was a thief. And often a murderer.

Since when do rabbits have eggs?' Ruth persisted, looking at the bewildered villagers. 'Never thought of that, eh? Where did it get them? Presumably from chocolate chickens. The bunny must have stolen the eggs from candy chickens who're searching for their babies. Frantic.