Quotes from Louise Penny

She was punished for many things, including being happy. So I wanted to capture that. The power of it. Happiness as an act of defiance. A revolutionary act.

Sun poured in through the stained-glass boys in uniforms from the Great War, scattering blues and deep reds and yellows across the pine floor and oak pews.

Gens du Pays. The separatist anthem,

But looking at the young men and women staring at him now, who'd seen something terrible about to happen and had done nothing, Chief Inspector Gamache wondered if he could have been wrong all this time. Maybe the darkness sometimes won. Maybe evil had no limits.

Did they go back to curse them?" asked Olivier. "Non," said Ruth. "To forgive them. That was the magic." The wizened Anne Lamarque in Clara's painting was smiling. Happy and free.

Though the duck looked bleary. But then, ducks often did.

Life can be cruel, as you know. But it can also be kind. Filled with wonders. You need to remember that. You have your own choice to make, Armand. 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? . . . The terrible or the wonderful? The goodness or the cruelty? Your life will be decided by that choice.

Armand Gamache had always held unfashionable beliefs. He believed that light would banish the shadows. That kindness was more powerful than cruelty, and that goodness existed, even in the most desperate places. He believed that evil had its limits.

Really? You have that ability, Chief Inspector? To just forget? Lucky you." They held each other's eyes. No one with gray in their hair got there without things they'd prefer to forget. But could not.

Don't believe everything you think. Chief Inspector Gamache wrote that on the board for the incoming cadets at the start of every year at the Sûreté academy, and it stayed there all year. At first the students in the class he taught laughed. It sounded clever but silly. Little by little most got it. And those who didn't did not progress further. That phrase was as powerful as any weapon they'd be handed.

This isn't inaction, this is simply a deep breath.

Instead the wiry, self-contained man had stared at him for a few seconds then invited him to sit and told him the four sentences that lead to wisdom. He'd said them only once, never repeating them. But once had been enough for Gamache. I'm sorry. I was wrong. I need help. I don't know.

Pro patria mori,

Everything. And I don't just mean in business. As humans, we invest not just money. We spend time. We spend effort. There's a reason it's put like that. Life's short, and time is precious and limited. We need to pick and choose where to put it.

Your statistics might be right—" "They are." "—but your conclusions are wrong.

Gamache asked, sipping his cold cucumber and raspberry soup. There was a bit of dill in it, a hint of lemon and something sweet.

Be very, very careful who you let into your life. And learn to make peace with whatever happens. You can't erase the past. It's trapped in there with you. But you can make peace with it. If you don't,' he said, 'you'll be at perpetual war.

Attachment masquerades as Love,

It is sweet and right to die for your country.

You lost your heart, your memories, your laughter, your brain and it even took your bones. Eventually it all came back, but different. Rearranged. 'Had you known Madame

There is a crack in everything That's how the light gets in.

We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.

Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?

There are three couplings,' said Myrna, herself leaning forward now, and whispering though she didn't know why. 'Attachment masquerades as Love, Pity as Compassion and Indifference as Equanimity.