Quotes from Louise Penny

leaden and laden by the recent past.

Julie wasn't as cheery, not as bright as before she'd joined them. They'd tarnished her.

There are four statements that lead to wisdom...You need to learn to say: I don't know. I'm sorry. I need help, and I was wrong. Chief Inspector Armand Gamache

very few people were ever really carefree. But there were moments of bliss.

The dead woman's name is Jane Neal,' Gamache knew it was a false kindness to cushion a blow like this.

Ring the bells that still can ring, Forget your perfect offering, There's a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in.

Better to bloom even for an instant, if that's your nature, than live forever in hiding.

The old Hadley house was abandoned now. Had been empty for months. But Peter knew it wasn't empty. For one thing he'd left part of himself in it. Not a hand or a nose or a foot, thank God. But things that had no substance but fantastic weight. He'd left his hope there, and trust. He'd left his faith there too. What little he had, he'd lost. There. Peter

a single bright orange leaf lost its grip and wafted back and forth, gently falling to the ground.

There was, or could be, outright danger. Believing a person capable of redemption when they'd proven they were not.

Evil is unspectacular and always human, Auden had written. And shares our bed and eats at our own table. Armand had

Inviting her, it seemed, to understand. What it meant to love so completely that all you wanted from that person was companionship.

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

But Peter knew it wasn't empty. For one thing he'd left part of himself in it. Not a hand or a nose or a foot, thank God. But things that had no substance but fantastic weight. He'd left his hope there, and trust. He'd left his faith there too. What little he had, he'd lost.

Sometimes you just have to do something stupid.

This was a walled world. With a pretense of control, without the reality of it.

He'd learned that from his mother. She'd taught him that order was freedom. To live in chaos was to live in a prison. Order freed the mind for other things.

Corruption and brutality are modeled and expected and rewarded. It becomes normal. And anyone who stands up to it, who tells them it's wrong, is beaten down. Or worse." Gamache shook his head.

Whale oil beef hooked,

How far away the shore must seem when you're on thin ice.

You know Gabri, he wears his heart on his sleeve.' In fact, there were times Olivier wondered whether Gabri hadn't been born inside out. Before

The chapel smelled like every small church Clara had ever known. Pledge and pine and dusty old books.

A man naturally given to action, Jean-Guy had come late to the value of pausing. "It is solved by walking," Gamache had often said. In the middle of a stressful case, the Chief would leave his office, and instead of doing something, he'd go for a walk.

They stole the files of everyone who was involved in the raid. Who came to you for help. Who told you everything. All their fears, their vulnerabilities. What they want from life. What matters to them. A road map in their heads.