Quotes by Louise Penny

. .his cell phone didnt work in Three Pines, and neither did email. He almost expected to see messages fluttering back and forth in the sky above the village, unable to descend.

Life is change. If you arent growing and evolving, youre standing still, and the rest of the world is surging ahead.

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 hed been wrong. The worst thing of all wasnt regret.

I saw a lot of men die there. Most men. Do you know what killed them?”…”Despair,” said Finney. “They believed themselves to be prisoners. I lived with those men, ate the same maggot-infested food, slept in the same beds, did the same back-breaking work. But they died and I lived. Do you know why?” “You were free.” “I was free. Milton was right…the mind is its own place. I was never a prisoner. Not then, not now.

The bistro was his secret weapon in tracking down murderers. Not just in Three Pines, but in every town and village in Quebec. First he found a comfortable café or brasserie, or bistro, then he found the murderer. Because Armand Gamache knew something many of his colleagues never figured out. Murder was deeply human, the murdered and the murderer. To describe the murderer as a monstrosity, a grotesque, was to give him an unfair advantage. No. Murderers were human, and at the root of each murder was an emotion. Warped, no doubt. Twisted and ugly. But an emotion. And one so powerful it had driven a man to make a ghost.Gamaches job was to collect the evidence, but also to collect the emotions. And the only way he knew to do that was do get to know the people. To watch and listen. To pay attention, and the best way to do that was in a deceptively casual way in a deceptively casual setting.Like the bistro.

Rules meant order. Without them they’d be killing each other. It began with butting in, with parking in disabled spaces, with smoking in elevators. And it ended in murder.

A murder was never about brawn, it began and ended in the brain and the brain could justify anything.

…believing sarcasm and rude remarks kept the monsters at bay. They didn’t.

You werent lost. You were exploring. Theres a difference.

Houses are like people, Agent Lemieux. They have secrets. Ill tell you something Ive learned.Armand Gamache dropped his voice so that Agent Lemieux had to strain to hear.Do you know what makes us sick, Agent Lemieux?Lemieux shook his head. Then out of the darkness and stillness he heard the answer.Its our secrets that make us sick.

…the most devastating thing Finney could have said. Not that Peter was hated by his father. But that he’d been loved all along. He’d interpreted kindness as cruelty, generosity as meanness, support as tethers. How horrible to have been offered love, and to have chosen hate instead. He’d turned heaven into hell.

Gamache watched the old poet. He knew what was looming behind the Mountain. What crushed all before it. The thing the Hermit most feared. The Mountain most feared.Conscience....Which is why, Gamache knew, 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 wouldnt be afraid of this?

We have a solemn pact. Kaye nodded to Mother and looked over at Em talking to some neighbors. If one of us is unconscious in the hospital, the others will make sure its pulled.The plug? Ruth asked.The chin hair, said Kaye, eyeing Ruth with some alarm. Youre off the visitors list. Mother, make a note.

I respect people who have such passion. Emile was saying. I dont. I have a lot of interests, some Im passionate about, but not to the exclusion of everything else. I sometimes wonder if thats necessary for geniuses to accomplish what they must, a singularity of purpose. We mere mortals just get in the way. Relationships are messy, distra

After more than a thousand years, he continued, an enemy finally broke through. Not because of superior firepower. Not because the Manchus were better fighters or strategists. They werent. The Manchus breached the Great Wall and took Beijing because someone opened a gate. From the inside. As simple as that. A general, a traitor, let them in and an empire fell.

Dont mistake dramatics for a conscience.

Conscience. Imagine being pursued by your own conscience….A mountain of conscience. Throwing a lengthening shadow. Growing. Darkening.

Shakespeare: …the best way to peace is to have a still and quiet conscience. Or none at all, thought Gamache.

Do you know the sums that I do?” “I count my blessings.

Her voice was flat, in a way Myrna recognized from years of listening to people trying to rein in their emotions. To squash them down, flatten, them, and with them their words and their voices. Desperately trying to make the horrific sound mundane.