Louise Penny Quotes

What people mistook for safety was in fact captivity.

Sometimes life goes in a direction not of our choosing,” said the minister, softly. “That’s why we need to adapt. It’s never too late to change direction.

Most of us are great with change, as long as it was our idea.

Don't believe everything you think.

Like a first love, the place where peace is first found is never, ever forgotten.

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.

When does a bush that burns become a Burning Bush?

No, I’m fine. And yes, I mean that sort of FINE,” said Reine-Marie, making reference to the title of one of Ruth’s poetry books, where FINE stood for Fucked up, Insecure, Neurotic, and Egotistical.

Where other women ... were lovely, Annie Gamache was alive.
Late, too late, Jean Guy Beauvoir had come to appreciate how very important it was, how very attractive it was, how very rare it was, to be fully alive.

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.

So that over time, clever became cunning. Dynamic became obsessed. Ambitious became ruthless.

Life is change. If you aren't growing and evolving you're standing still, and the rest of the world is surging ahead. Most of these people are very immature; they lead still lives, waiting.

Waiting for what?

Waiting for someone to save them. Expecting someone to save them, or at least protect them from the big bad world. The thing is no one else can save them because the problem is theirs, and so is the solution. Only they can get out of it.

How did you know He was God?' Gamache asked.
'When does a bush that burns become a Burning Bush?' Em asked and Gamache nodded. 'My despair disappeared. The grief remained, of course, but I knew then that the world wasn't a dark and desperate place. I was so relieved. In that moment I found hope. This strnager with the sign had given it to me. It sounds ridiculous, I know, but suddenly the gloom was lifted.'
She paused a moment, remembering, a smile on her face.

There’s more, but I won’t go on. It’s a poem by Rupert Brooke. He was a soldier in the First World War. It helped him in the hellhole of the trenches to think of the things he loved. It helped me too. I made mental lists and followed the things I love, the people I love, back to sanity. I still do.

The leaves had fallen from the trees and lay crisp and crackling beneath his feet. Picking one up he marveled, not for the first time, at the perfection of nature where leaves were most beautiful at the very end of their lives.