Quotes from Louise Penny

Anyone could run around, not many could quietly wait. As they did now. But that didn't mean Chief Inspector Gamache and Inspector Lacoste did nothing. As they waited they took in their surroundings.

By offering a second chance. One last chance. Don't get me wrong, I believe in using your head. But not in spending too much time in there. Fear lives in the head. And courage lives in the heart. The job is to get from one to the other.

Was the final fear that, in losing his fears, he would also lose his joy?

You need to learn to say: I don't know. I'm sorry. I need help and I was wrong.

Events are exaggerated, heroes fabricated, goals are rewritten to appear more noble than they actually were. All to manipulate public opinion, to manufacture a common purpose or enemy. And the cornerstone of a really great movement? A powerful symbol. Take away or tarnish that and everything starts to crumble, everything's questioned.

Professor Robinson was revealing, not creating, the anger. The fear. And yes, perhaps even the cowardice they kept hidden away. She was like some genetic mutation awakening illnesses that would have normally lain dormant. She was the catalyst. But the potential, the sickness, was already there.

I'm sorry. I was wrong. I don't know. I need help.

And now here is my secret, a very simple secret. It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye. Armand wondered if Florence understood that line from The Little Prince. He hadn't, as a child.

The place didn't even have crime. Except murder. The only criminal thing that ever happened in this village was the worst possible crime.

She's a triumph of image over reality. I'm not even sure if she knows what reality is anymore, she's so busy creating this image of herself.

I didn't feel the aimed word hit And go in like a soft bullet.

An Asshole Saint," said Stephen. "Not the first. I think most were, weren't they? In fact, she wouldn't even be the first around here.

He felt in Three Pines he had a shot at being himself. What he hadn't counted on was it taking so long to figure out who 'he' was.

There was always, even now, a before and an after.

snowflake might look harmless, but it was a harbinger, a warning, of worse to come.

Nature is talking to us all the time, it's just hearing that's the problem.

Of all the things we keep inside the worst are the secrets. The things we are so ashamed of, so afraid of, we need to hide them even from ourselves. Secrets lead to delusion and delusion leads to lies, and lies create a wall. Our secrets make us sick because they separate us from other people.

the answers lay in flesh and blood, not in a book and not in a report. And so often not even in things corporeal, but in something that couldn't be held and contained and touched. The answers to his questions lay in the murky past and in the emotions hidden there. The

Then she said a little prayer of thanks to the gods that give grace. The grace to cry and the grace to watch.

Now you will feel no rain, for each of you will be shelter for the other: Now you will feel no cold, for each of you will be warmth for the other: Now there is no more loneliness. -First Nations wedding blessing

Here it is then, the dark thing, the dark thing you have waited for so long. And after all, it is nothing new.

And she'd exceeded every expectation, by qualifying for the Sûreté. In one generation her family had gone from victims of the authorities in Czechoslovakia, to the ones who made the rules. They'd moved from one end of the gun to the other.

Clara rose with exaggerated calm. She took Jane in her arms and felt the old body creak back into place. Then she said a little prayer of thanks to the gods that give grace. The grace to cry and the grace to watch.

But, like peace, comfort didn't come from hiding away or running away. Comfort first demanded courage