Quotes from Louise Penny

You've seen worse, you've seen worse, you've seen worse," she muttered to herself. Harriet wondered if that could possibly be true. It was also a strange, though oddly comforting, mantra. One she knew she could use for the rest of her life.

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.

Gamache had patiently explained, over and over, over the years, that he was doing something. He was thinking. It had taken Beauvoir years to see the power of pausing. And of patience. Of taking a breath to consider all options, all angles, and not simply acting on the most obvious.

Living our lives was like living in a long house. We entered as babies at one end, and we exited when our time came. And in between we moved through this one, great, long room. Everyone we ever met, and every thought and action lived in that room with us. 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. Gamache

They could stop being pillars and just be people.

Almost invariably people expected that if you were a good person you shouldn't meet a bad end, that only the deserving are killed. And certainly only the deserving are murdered.

No one was who they seemed. Everyone was more.

When we first sat down, you said that Hell is empty and all the devils are here. What did you mean?" "It's one of my favorite quotes, you know that," said Stephen. And Armand did. Stephen loved to use the lines from The Tempest to unnerve business rivals, colleagues. Friends. Strangers on planes.

I have no talent for choosing my battles. Life seems, strangely, like a battle to me.

Shadows were distancing themselves from the trees, the statues, the people. Elongating.

Were you praying?' Lemieux was embarrassed to ask. Prayer, in his generation, was worse than rape, worse than sodomy, worse than failure. He felt he'd just deeply insulted the chief.

home each evening. Exhausted. Bewildered by

But what happened to people who never spoke, never raised their voices? Kept everything inside? Gamache knew what happened. Everything they swallowed, every word, thought, feeling rattled around inside, hollowing the person out. And into that chasm they stuffed their words, their rage.

patrons. Courage must always be rewarded. The other thing Jacques remembered was looking down the long corridor as Monsieur Horowitz paused at the mosaic in the tile floor by the entrance to the Hôtel Lutetia. It was the symbol of the hotel, and also the ancient symbol of Paris. The city had originally been called Lutetia. And her emblem was a ship in peril on a stormy sea. That symbol was imbedded in the hotel floor.

You were going to say the Death Star, weren't you?" "Well, yes. If you can quote poetry, I can reference Star Wars.

right. The goal of any healthy society was to keep people safe to express sometimes unpopular views.

The others said they wanted to get better, but I think, and this isn't popular in psychology circles' - here she leaned forward and whispered, conspiratorially - 'I think many people love their problems. Gives them all sorts of excuses for not growing up and getting on with life.

Ironic, really, that from a blind they should suddenly see so clearly.

carried on round pianos

Fluctuat nec mergitur." Every schoolchild in Paris learned those words. It was the motto of the ancient settlement of Lutetia. And of Paris.

loss like this was a progression of miseries, like stepping-stones. Until they reached the other side. The new continent. Where the terrible reality lived, and the sun never fully came out again.

It would be a cull." "Culls happen for the health of the community. They're unfortunate, but necessary

Let it go. You have your own life. Not Uncle Saul's, not your parents'.' His face had grown very serious then, his eyes searching. 'You can't live in the past and you certainly can't undo it. What happened to Uncle Saul has nothing to do with you. Memories can kill, Yvette. The past can reach right up and grab you and drag you to a place you shouldn't be. Like a burning building.

I'm sorry, but I have bad news. Your aunt was found dead today.' 'Oh, no,' she responded, with all the emotion one greets a stain on an old T-shirt.