Quotes About Community

I wanted to hug them all. We belonged to each other somehow...But that sweet feeling hung on and I loved all of Harlem gently and didn't want to be Puerto Rican or anything else but my own rusty self.

What we call reality is an agreement that people have arrived at to make life more livable.

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.

Three Pines wasn't on any tourist map, being too far off any main or even secondary road. Like Narnia, it was generally found unexpectedly and with a degree of surprise that such an elderly village should have been hiding in this valley all along. Anyone fortunate enough to find it once usually found their way back.

Few things are better in the world than a room full of librarians. I consider them literary heroes. The keepers and defenders of the written word.

People wandered in for books and conversation. They brought their stories to her, some bound, and some known by heart. She recognized some of the stories as real, and some as fiction. But she honored them all, though she didn't buy every one.

The reason "belonging" was so potent, so attractive, so much a part of the human yearning, was that it also meant safety, and loyalty. If you were "one of us" you were protected.

He had loads of colleagues, acquaintances, buddies. He was an emotional communist. Everyone counted equally, but none too much.

Gabri plugged the oven and the espresso machine into the generator,' explained Olivier. 'No lights, but we have the necessities.

She'd wanted to run an inn. To welcome people, to mother them. They had no children of their own, and she had a powerful need to nurture.

We don't just sing; we are the song.

The Chief had once told him about the behavior of gorillas when faced with an attack. They met it head on, staring down the enemy. But every now and then they'd reach out to touch the gorilla beside them. To make sure they were not alone. Keeping his eyes on the road, Jean-Guy reached out and touched Gamache's shoulder.

An unsuspected yearning uncovered, discovered. For a simpler time and a simpler life. Before Internet, and climate change, and terrorism. When neighbors worked together, and separation was not a topic or an issue or wise.

I went through a period in my life when I had no friends, when the phone never rang, when I thought I would die from loneliness. I know that the real blessing here isn't that I have a book published, but that I have so many people to thank.

Some might argue that Three Pines itself isn't real, and they'd be right, but limited in their view. The village does not exist, physically. But I think of it as existing in ways that are far more important and 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.

It's important, Madeleine, not to cut people out of our lives. Isolation doesn't make us better at our job. It makes us weaker, more vulnerable.

Though dour and childless himself, the grocer was unfailingly kind and patient with children. As though instead of having none, he had them all.

Things were pretty dire when Ruth was the healing agent.

Gamache had been to Three Pines on previous investigations and each time he'd had the feeling he belonged. It was a powerful feeling. After all, what else did people really want except to belong? He

True Québécois walked in the middle of the road.

very rich indeed, rich in the things that matter. In friendships and laughter, in kindness and company.

like a living chant. Each of us individual notes. On our own, nothing. But together? Divine. We don't just sing, we are the song.

This village has known loss, people killed before their time, accidents, war, disease. Three Pines isn't immune to any of that. But you seem to accept it as part of life and not hang on to the bitterness.

It was a perfect time of year, when late summer flowers were still blooming and the leaves were turning, and the grass was still green, but the nights were chilly and sweaters were out and fires were beginning to be lit. So that the hearths at night resembled the forests in the day, all giddy and bright and cheerful. Soon everyone would head back to the