Louise Penny Quotes

I just sit where I'm put, composed
of stone and wishful thinking:
That the deity that kills for pleasure will also
heal,
That in the midst of your nightmare,
the final one, a kind lion will pick your soul
up gently
by the nape of the neck,
And caress you into darkness and paradise.

~ Ruth Zardo, poet and character in All The Devils Are Here

Ring the bells that still can ring, Forget your perfect offering, There’s a crack in everything, That’s how the light gets in.’ ‘What an extraordinary poem. Ruth Zardo?’ ‘Leonard Cohen. Clara used it in her piece. She wrote it on the wall behind the three of you, like graffiti.

Control your thoughts and you can control your emotions. Do you trust me?

As a good rule of thumb, if you have to lie, you might be doing something wrong.

When senior officers start shooting each other, it’s time to leave,” said Gamache. “I’m sure it’s somewhere in the regulations.

When someone stabs you it’s not your fault that you feel pain.

What I was going to say is that my mentor had this theory that our lives are like an aboriginal longhouse. Just one huge room.” He swept one arm out to illustrate scope. “He said that if we thought we could compartmentalize things, we were deluding ourselves. Everyone we meet, every word we speak, every action taken or not taken lives in our longhouse. With us. Always. Never to be expelled or locked away.

"We all do stupid, cruel things as children. I remember I once took a neighbor's dog and shut it in my house, then told the little girl her dog had been picked up by the dog catcher and destroyed. I still wake up at three in the morning seeing her face. I tracked her down about ten years ago to say I was sorry but she'd been killed in a car accident."
"You have to forgive yourself", said Gamache, holding up Being.
"You're right, of course. But maybe I don't want to. Maybe that's something I don't want to lose. My own private hell. Horrible, but mine."

If less was more, she had a great deal.

When Olivier had been taken away Gamache had sat back down and stared at the sack. what could be worse than Chaos, Despair, War?

What would even the Mountain flee from? Gamache had given it a lot of thought.

What haunted people even, perhaps especially, on their deathbed? What chased them, tortured them and brought some of them to their knees? And Gamache thought he had the answer.

Regret.

Regret for things said, for things done, and not done. Regret for the people they might have been. And failed to be.

Finally, when he was alone, the Chief Inspector had opened the sack and looking inside had realize he'd been wrong. The worst thing of all wasn't regret.

"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'.

Funny how imperfections on the outside mean something splendid beneath.

But there was no hiding from Conscience. Not in new homes and new cars. In travel. In meditation or frantic activity. In children, in good works. On tiptoes or bended knee. In a big career. Or a small cabin. It would find you. The past always did. Which was why... it was vital to be aware of actions in the present. Because the present became the past, and the past grew. And got up, and followed you. And found you... Who wouldn't be afraid of this?

As they trudged through the snow toward Clara's pretty little cottage, Ruth lost her footing. Haniya grabbed her before she fell. She held Ruth's hand for the rest of the way, and wondered if maybe the key was not in being held, but in holding.

It would be folly to trust the instincts of a baby. But it would also be a mistake to completely dismiss them.