Quotes from Louise Penny

It was as though I wasn't human.' 'That's the necessary first step,' said Myrna. 'They dehumanise their victim. You've put it well.

With patience comes power.

What're you going to focus on? What's unfair, or all the wonderful things that happen? Both are true, both are real. Both need to be accepted. But which carries more weight with you?" Stephen tapped the boy's chest. "The terrible or the wonderful? The goodness or the cruelty? Your life will be decided by that choice.

the room was warming up and there was nothing quite like the comfort of being cold, then slowly feeling the heat approaching and arriving and spreading.

The book was called How to Lie with Statistics.

The funny thing about Hell is that we assume it's obvious. Fire, brimstone. We'll be plunged into it by some horrific event in our lives. But the truth is, Hell can be as subtle as Heaven. He looked around. Sometimes we don't recognize we've wandered into Hell until it's too late.

A barometer of a moral deficit.

he even introduced himself as the Asshole Saint,

Because you can't be brave if you're not afraid.

And she didn't care about any one, just this one.

Most of us are great with change, as long as it was our idea. But change imposed from the outside can send some people into a tailspin.

He wasn't addicted to pain, to panic, but he might be addicted to the bliss of having them stop. The mind, he knew, really was its own place.

What blinded us, he told Beauvoir, were the horrific acts. They threatened to overwhelm and obscure the decency. It was so easy to remember the cruelty because those left a wound, a scab that hid the rest. Hid the best. But those appalling acts, those appalling people, were the exception.

She taught me that life goes on, and that I had a choice. To lament what I no longer had or be grateful for what remained. I was fortunate to have a role model that I couldn't squirm my way around. After all, how do you argue with the survivor of a death camp?

Each time he thought about it Gamache trembled with delight. The very idea of his child having a child struck him as nearly unbelievable.

But he'd found his answer when he'd found Reine-Marie, had loved and married her and loved her more each day. He knew then how kind God had been not to take one and leave the other. Even for him.

What're you going to focus on? What's unfair, or all the wonderful things that happen? Both are true, both are real. Both need to be accepted. But which carries more weight with you?" Stephen tapped the boy's chest. "The terrible or the wonderful? The goodness or the cruelty? Your life will be decided by

I suppose I could blame Jane's death for my poor behavior, but as you'll discover, I'm just like this. I have no talent for choosing my battles. Life seems, strangely, like a battle to me. The whole thing.

They're only just now decoding Dickens's Tavistock letter." It was the letter Jérôme Brunel was working on as part of his hobby.

Evil is unspectacular and always human,

here, here, there was peace. The deep peace that comes not just with quiet, but with familiarity.

Until we made peace with the less agreeable parts of our past they'd continue to heckle us from way down the long house. And sometimes the really loud, obnoxious ones told us what to do, directing our actions even years later.

Ya no sentiréis frío, pues uno calentará al otro. Ya no existe la soledad para vosotros. Ya no existe la soledad. Nunca más habrá soledad.

Friends and neighbors hugged, and even kissed. Though it felt strange, and even slightly naughty. Some still preferred to bump elbows. Others continued to carry their masks. Like a rosary, or rabbit's foot, or a St. Christopher medal, promising safe passage.