Louise Penny Quotes

I just sit where I'm put, composed
of stone and wishful thinking:
that the deity who kills for pleasure
will also heal,
that in the midst of your nightmare,
the final one, a kind lion
will come with bandages in her mouth
and the soft body of a woman,
and lick you clean of fever,
and pick your soul up gently by the nape of the neck
and caress you into darkness and paradise.

Things sometimes fell apart unexpectedly. It was not necessarily a reflection of how much they were valued.

Loss was like that, Gamache knew. You didn’t just lose a loved one. You lost your heart, your memories, your laughter, your brain and it even took your bones. Eventually it all came back, but different. Rearranged.

Where there is love there is courage,
where there is courage there is peace,
where there is peace there is God.
And when you have God, you have everything.

Oscar Wilde said that conscience and cowardice are the same thing. What stops us from doing horrible things isn’t our conscience but the fear of getting caught.

Clara Morrow had painted Ruth as the elderly, forgotten Virgin Mary. Angry, demented, the Ruth in the portrait was full of despair, of bitterness. Of a life left behind, of opportunities squandered, of loss and betrayals real and imagined and created and caused. She clutched at a rough blue shawl with emaciated hands. The shawl had slipped off one bony shoulder and the skin was sagging, like something nailed up and empty.
“And yet the portrait was radiant, filling the room from one tiny point of light. In her eyes. Embittered, mad Ruth stared into the distance, at something very far off, approaching. More imagined than real.
Hope.
Clara had captured the moment despair turned to hope. The moment life began. She’d somehow captured Grace.

The Chief had once told him about the behavior of gorillas when faced with an attack. They met it head on, staring down the enemy. But every now and then they’d reach out to touch the gorilla beside them. To make sure they were not alone. Keeping his eyes on the road, Jean-Guy reached out and touched Gamache’s shoulder.

Are you enjoying your suffering? You must be, to hold on to it so tightly.

Don’t believe everything you think,” said Gamache, before releasing the hand and opening the door. “Pema Chödrön. A Buddhist nun.

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.

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.

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

Hell is the truth seen too late,

believe in using your head. But not in spending too much time in there. Fear lives in the head. And courage lives in the heart. The job is to get from one to the other.

To remain conscious and continent was her new goal.