Quotes from Louise Penny

first two were obvious.

The blindness you mention isn't believing in the essential goodness of people, it's failing to see it.

his large, expressive hands hovering over the tiny circle of blood marring her fluffy cardigan, as though like a magician he could remove the wound and restore the woman. But he could not. That wasn't his gift. Fortunately for Gamache he had others.

And love and attachment?' asked Gamache. 'Mothers and children are classic examples. Some mothers see their job as preparing their kids to live in the big old world. To be independent, to marry and have children of their own. To live wherever they choose and do what makes them happy. That's love. Others, and we all see them, cling to their children. Move to the same city, the same neighborhood. Live through them. Stifle them. Manipulate, use guilt-trips, cripple them.

No man is as bad as the worst thing he's done.

He believed a good leader was also a good follower. And he invited his team to treat each other with respect, listen to ideas, support each other.

Of course the opposite is also true. No one is as good as the best thing.

Oscar Wilde said there's no sin except stupidity.

Surely you can feel it. Do you ever feel lost, as though people are speaking a foreign language, as though there's something going on which everyone else gets, but you don't?

Some cracks let the light in. Some let the darkness out.

Equanimity and indifference. I think that's the worst of the near enemies, the most corrosive. Equanimity is balance. When something overwhelming happens in our lives we feel it strongly but we also have an ability to overcome it.

Attachment takes hostages.

Peter was willing the water to boil so he could make tea and then all this would go away. Maybe, said his brain and his upbringing, if you make enough tea and small talk, time reverses and all bad things are undone. But he'd lived too long with Clara to be able to hide in denial.

Your vast well of ignorance is finally paying off.

Often what seemed obvious was not a fact, or even the truth.

Armand Gamache looked across to the deep green midsummer forest and the mountains that rolled into eternity. Then his eyes dropped to the village in the valley below them, as though held in the palm of an ancient hand. A stigmata in the Québec countryside. Not a wound, but a wonder.

he understands," said Gamache quietly, as though

The goal of any healthy society was to keep people safe to express sometimes unpopular views. But there was a limit to that expression, a line.

She was fierce because she was afraid. Of everything. The rest of the world saw a strong, noble lioness. He looked at his daughter and saw Bert Lahr, though he'd never tell her that. Or her husband.

He'd seen Gamache go into homes, warehouses, forests where they knew heavily

How bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man's eyes.

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

Now here's a good one: you're lying on your deathbed. You have one hour to live. Who is it, exactly, you have needed all these years to forgive?

And may your days be good and long upon the earth.