Quotes About Introspection

the four sentences that lead to wisdom. I'm sorry. I was wrong. I need help. I don't know.

She felt if she could just get a good look at a person's bookcase and their grocery cart, she'd pretty much know who they were.

And yet,' Gamache continued in a pleasant voice, 'isn't that what's often taught in meditation? Not the absence of emotion, or swallowing them, but not allowing them to run the show?

Olivier looked at him blankly. But the Chief Inspector had seen that look before. It was, in fact, almost impossible to look blank. Unless the person wanted to. A blank face to the Chief Inspector meant a frantic mind.

There are four things that lead to wisdom. You ready for them?' She nodded, wondering when the police work would begin. "They are four sentences we learn to say, and mean." Gamache held up his hand as a fist and raised a finger with each point. 'I don't know. I need help. I'm sorry. I was wrong'.

They stared ahead. Silent. Morin had never realized murderers were caught in silence. But they were.

Marcus Aurelius. The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.

I often think we should have tattooed to the back of whatever hand we use to shoot or write, "I might be wrong.

The fault lies with us, and only us. It's not fate, not genetics, not bad luck, and it's definitely not Mom and Dad. Ultimately it's us and our choices...but the most powerful spectacular thing is that the solution rests with us as well.

The reason Armand Gamache could go there was because it wasn't totally foreign to him. He knew it because he'd seen his own burned terrain, he'd walked off the familiar and comfortable path inside his own head and heart and seen what festered in the dark. And one day Jean Guy Beauvoir would look at his own monsters, and then be able to recognize others. And maybe this was the day and this was the case. He hoped so.

But being essentially a dumpster fire herself, she was familiar with flames.

A mind with absolutely no insight into itself, a mind filled with purpose and delusion.

Sobriety isn't for cowards, Chief Inspector. Whatever you might think of an alcoholic, to get sober, really sober demands great honesty, and that demands great courage. Stopping drinking's the easy part. Then we have to face ourselves. Our demons. How many people are willing to do that?

always struck him how much more effective silence was than words. If the effect you were after was to disconcert.

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.

I had three chairs in my house: one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society." "My favorite quote from Thoreau is also from Walden," said Gamache. "A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone.

told them the four statements that led to wisdom. Never repeating them. I was wrong. I'm sorry. I don't know. I need help.

Conscience. Imagine being pursued by your own conscience….A mountain of conscience. Throwing a lengthening shadow. Growing. Darkening.

Gamache was the best of them, the smartest and bravest and strongest because he was willing to go into his own head alone, and open all the doors there, and enter all the dark rooms. And make friends with what he found there. And he went into the dark, hidden rooms in the minds of others. The minds of killers. And he faced down whatever monsters came at him. He went to places Beauvoir had never even dreamed existed.

Jean Guy Beauvoir was loosely wrapped but tightly wound.

They are four sentences we learn to say, and mean.' Gamache held up his hand as a fist and raised a finger with each point. 'I don't know. I need help. I'm sorry. And one other.' Gamache thought for a moment but couldn't bring it to mind. 'I forget. But we'll talk more about it tonight, right?

Armand Gamache wondered whether CC de Poitiers was at that very moment trying to explain herself to a perplexed God and two very angry seals.

There are four statements that lead to wisdom. I want you to remember them and follow them. Are you ready?' Agent Lemieux had taken out his notebook and, pen poised, he'd listened. 'You need to learn to say: I don't know. I'm sorry. I need help and I was wrong.' Agent

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.