Louise Penny Quotes

He tried to let her know it would be all right. Eventually. Life wouldn't always be this painful. The world wouldn't always be this brutal. Give it time, little one. Give it another chance. Come back.

In winter the very ground seemed to reach up and grab the elderly, yanking them to earth as though hungry for them.

Most of us are great with change, as long it was our idea. But change imposed from the outside can send some people into a tailspin. - Myrna Landers

After spending most of her life scanning the horizon for slights and threats, genuine and imagined, she knew the real threat to her happiness came not from the dot in the distance, but from looking for it. Expecting it. Waiting for it. And in some cases, creating it. Her father had jokingly accused her of living in the wreckage of her future. Until one day she’d looked deep into his eyes and saw he wasn’t joking. He was warning her.

I went through a period in my life when I had no friends, when the phone never rang, when I thought I would die from loneliness. I know that the real blessing here isn't that I have a book published, but that I have so many people to thank.

...while forgetting the past might condemn people to repeat it, remembering it too vividly condemned them to never leave.

There is always a road back. If we have the courage to look for it, and take it. I'm sorry. I was wrong. I don't know. I need help. These are the signposts. The cardinal directions.

I'm just like this. I have no talent for choosing my battles. Life seems, strangely, like a battle to me. The whole thing.

Beauvoir knew that the root of all evil wasn’t money. No, what created and drove evil was fear. Fear of not having enough money, enough food, enough land, enough power, enough security, enough love. Fear of not getting what you want, or losing what you have.

Armand Gamache had always held unfashionable beliefs. He believed the light would banish the shadows. That kindness was more powerful than cruelty, and that goodness existed, even in the most desperate places. He believed that evil had its limits.

Life can be cruel, as you know. But it can also be kind. Filled with wonders. You need to remember that. You have your own choice to make, Armand. What’re you going to focus on? What’s unfair, or all the wonderful things that happen? Both are true, both are real. Both need to be accepted. But which carries more weight with you?” Stephen tapped the boy’s chest. “The terrible or the wonderful? The goodness or the cruelty? Your life will be decided by that choice.

Most unhappiness comes from not being able to sit quietly in a room.

In my experience people who have been hurt either pass it on and become abusive themselves or they develop a great kindness.

Grief took a terrible toll. It was paid at every birthday, every holiday, each Christmas. It was paid when glimpsing the familiar handwriting, or a hat, or a balled-up sock. Or hearing a creak that could have been, should have been, a footstep. Grief took its toll each morning, each evening, every noon hour as those who were left behind struggled forward.

Gabri and I follow the way of Häagen Das. It’s occasionally a rocky road.