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Quotes About Struggle

They'd crossed over to that continent where grieving parents lived. It looked the same as the rest of the world, but wasn't. Colors bled pale. Music was just notes. Books no longer transported or comforted, not fully. Never again. Food was nutrition, little more. Breaths were sighs.
~ Louise Penny
Not everyone makes the boat, she thought.
~ Louise Penny
There's something about her, something bitter, that resents happiness in others, and needs to ruin it. That's probably what makes her a great poet, she knows what it is to suffer. She gathers suffering to her. Collects it, and sometimes creates it.
~ Louise Penny
Some so weighty we carry them our whole lives. They can blight our very existence, or they can make us stronger. They can make us bitter or teach us compassion. They can drive us to do things we never thought ourselves capable of. Wonderful achievements, like becoming Chief Inspector and Commander. Or horrific things. Terrible dark deeds.
~ Louise Penny
Fucked-up. Insecure. Neurotic. Egotistical.
~ Louise Penny
Why were there no words that felt? Words that when you touched them you'd feel what was intended? The chasm left by the loss of Madeleine? The lump in the throat that fizzed and ached. The terror of falling asleep knowing that on waking she'd relive the loss, like Prometheus bound and tormented each day. Everything had changed. Even her grammar. Suddenly she lived in the past tense. And the singular.
~ Louise Penny
Clara rocked back and forth, back and forth, cradling her loss. Earlier in the day she'd felt someone had scooped her heart and her brain right out of her body. Now they were back, but they were broken. Her brain jumped madly about the place, but always back to that one scorched spot.
~ Louise Penny
eventually that pain turned to bitterness, and the bitterness turned to anger, and the anger became rage. Until that rage became madness.
~ Louise Penny
Clara knew that grief took a terrible toll. It was paid at every birthday, every holiday, each Christmas. It was paid when glimpsing the familiar handwriting, or a hat, or a balled-up sock. Or hearing a creak that could have been, should have been, a footstep. Grief took its toll each morning, each evening, every noon hour as those who were left behind struggled forward. Clara wasn't sure
~ Louise Penny
And so, as often happens when men of God disagree, a war erupted.
~ Louise Penny
Addicts, you're pathetic.' Myrna looked over at Ruth's vase of Scotch, half gone. `You're wrong there,' said Ruth, following Myrna's gaze. `This used to be my drug of choice. In my teens my drug of choice was acceptance, in my twenties it was approval, in my thirties it was love, in my forties it was Scotch. That lasted a while,' she admitted. `Now all I really crave is a good bowel movement.
~ Louise Penny
I'm just like this. I have no talent for choosing my battles. Life seems, strangely, like a battle to me. The whole thing.
~ Louise Penny
I don't know about normal human beings, but for alcoholics it's lethal. A secret that rotten will drive you to drink. And the drink will drive you to your grave. But not before it steals everything from you. Your loved ones, your job, your home. Your dignity. And finally, your life.
~ Louise Penny
If this was the right thing to do, why did it feel so wrong? But no, it didn't feel wrong. It felt wretched. Horrific. A nightmare. But sometimes 'right' felt like that.
~ Louise Penny
So that the boy grew an outer hull to withstand assault. But while those skins saved tender young souls, Gamache knew, they soon stopped protecting and became the problem. Because while the hard outer shell kept the hurt at bay, it also kept out the light. And inside the frightened little soul became something else entirely, nurtured only in darkness.
~ Louise Penny
Screw off. Leave me alone!' Now she rounded on him. 'Where're your tears? Eh? You're more dead than she is. You can't even cry. And now what? You want me to stop? It hasn't even been a day yet, and you're what? Bored with it? Not the center of the universe anymore? You want everything to go back to the way it was, like that.' Clara snapped her fingers in his face. 'You disgust me.
~ Louise Penny
He wasn't addicted to pain, to panic, but he might be addicted to the bliss of having them stop. The mind, he knew, really was its own place.
~ Louise Penny
I suppose I could blame Jane's death for my poor behavior, but as you'll discover, I'm just like this. I have no talent for choosing my battles. Life seems, strangely, like a battle to me. The whole thing.
~ Louise Penny
Evil is unspectacular and always human,
~ Louise Penny
I have no talent for choosing my battles. Life seems, strangely, like a battle to me.
~ Louise Penny
home each evening. Exhausted. Bewildered by
~ Louise Penny
You know, don't you," Armand said, "that almost every parent feels like you do at some stage. Wishes they could go back to a carefree life. I can't tell you how often Reine-Marie and I looked at Daniel and Annie throwing tantrums and wished they were someone else's children
~ Louise Penny
where else would you find darkness but right up against the light? What greater triumph for evil than to ruin a garden?
~ Louise Penny
the Agitation.
~ Louise Penny