Louise Penny Quotes

Entitlement was, she knew, a terrible thing. It chained the person to their victimhood. It gobbled up all the air around it. Until the person lived in a vacuum, where nothing good could flourish.

That was the danger. Not that betrayals happened, not that cruel things happened, but that they could outweigh all the good. That we could forget the good and only remember the bad.

I’ll pray that you grow up a brave man in a brave country. I will pray you find a way to be useful.

Just because it's the truth doesn't make it less insulting.

What people mistook for safety was in fact captivity.

I don't know what came over me. It's like sometimes when it's very quiet I feel like screaming. And sometimes when I'm holding something delicate I feel like dropping it. I don't know why.

It is sweet and right to die for your country…. an old and dangerous lie. It might be necessary, but it is never sweet and rarely right. It’s a tragedy.

Who hurt you once, / so far beyond repair / that you would greet each overture / with curling lip?

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.

People instinctively let down their guard when they saw a limp, an illness, a flaw in someone else. Not out of compassion but because it made them feel superior. Stronger. Those people, Gamache knew, did not always last long. It was not a useful instinct.

It's a shame that creativity and sloth look exactly the same.

When someone shoots at us, we return fire,” said Jean-Guy. Now Jacques did nod. “But it’s equally important that when someone is kind to us, we return that as well,

You’re lying on your deathbed. You have one hour to live. Who is it, exactly, you have needed all these years to forgive?

When a woman commits to something she does it with both her heart and her head. Very powerful.

To be silent. In hopes of not offending, in hopes of being accepted.

But what happened to people who never spoke, never raised their voices? Kept everything inside?

Gamache knew what happened. Everything they swallowed, every word, thought, feeling rattled around inside, hollowing the person out. And into that chasm they stuffed their words, their rage.