Louise Penny Quotes & Sayings

The question that haunted every investigation was 'why'. — Louise Penny

Things were not as they seemed. The known world was shifting, reforming. Everything he'd taken as a given, a fact, as real and unquestioned, had fallen away. But — Louise Penny

Not everything buried is actually dead. For many, the past is alive. — Louise Penny

Who hurt you, once,
so far beyond repair
that you would meet each overture
with curling lip?
While we, who knew you well,
your friends, (the focus of your scorn)
could see your courage in the face of fear,
your wit, and thoughtfulness,
and will remember you
with something close to love. — Louise Penny

If you pretend to know you aren't going to actually learn. — Louise Penny

... walked deep into the shadow, deep into the longhouse where all his experiences and memories lived ... — Louise Penny

... struck. Once. And into that blow he put his childhood, his grief, his loss. He put his mother's sorrow and his sister's longing. The menorah, weighed down with that, crushed the Hermit's skull. — Louise Penny

He felt like a mobile library. Where other investigators gathered fingerprints and evidence, he gathered books. — Louise Penny

Being with Ken was like being with a permanently foreign friend. It was impossible to understand them, but all you really needed to do was reflect back their own expressions. When Ken looked sad, they looked sad. When he looked happy, they smiled. It was actually very relaxing to be around him. Not much was expected. — Louise Penny

Getting in his car he let it warm up, feeling the heated seats grow warm under him. On a bitterly cold winter day it was almost as good as sex. Then — Louise Penny

Do you know the sums that I do?" "I count my blessings. — Louise Penny

It was a perfect time of year, when late summer flowers were still blooming and the leaves were turning, and the grass was still green, but the nights were chilly and sweaters were out and fires were beginning to be lit. So that the hearths at night resembled the forests in the day, all giddy and bright and cheerful. Soon everyone would head back to the — Louise Penny

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. — Louise Penny

He did not suggest that she sit quietly and get to know herself so she could be all the company she needed. — Louise Penny

I'm afraid it won't stop, and all my bones will disappear and one day I'll just dissolve. I won't be able to stand up anymore, or move." She looked into Clara's eyes. Clung to Clara's eyes. "Mostly I'm afraid that it won't matter. Because I have nowhere to go, and nothing to do. No need of bones." And Clara knew then that as great as her own grief was, nothing could compare to this hollow woman and her hollow home. There wasn't just a wound where Laurent had once been. This was a vacuum, into which everything tumbled. A great gaping black hole that sucked all the light, all the matter, all that mattered, into it. Clara, who knew grief, was suddenly frightened herself. By the magnitude of this woman's loss. — Louise Penny

What are you afraid of?
I'm afraid of not recognizing Paradise. — Louise Penny

Memories can kill, Yvette. The past can reach right up and grab you and drag you to a place you shouldn't be. Like a burning building. — Louise Penny

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 he'd been wrong. The worst thing of all wasn't regret. — Louise Penny

Surprised by Joy Professor — Louise Penny

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. — Louise Penny

Everyone was getting married and it seemed like fun. I — Louise Penny

Had he inadvertently made the famed homicide department of the Surete an island? Far from saving careers of promising agents, had he in fact imprisoned them, kept them from the mainland of their peers? — Louise Penny

There is a balm in Gilead," she read from the back, "to make the wounded whole - " "There's power enough in Heaven / To cure a sin-sick soul. — Louise Penny

You know Gabri, he wears his heart on his sleeve.' In fact, there were times Olivier wondered whether Gabri hadn't been born inside out. — Louise Penny

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

We knew who would want him found, Dr Croix, but who wants him to remain buried? — Louise Penny

A bare bulb swished from side to side. Dust floated in what little light it threw and cobwebs hung from the rafters. It smelled of spiders. — Louise Penny

She'd arrived a self-sufficient city woman, and now she was covered in snow, sitting on a bench beside a crazy person, and she had a duck on her lap. Who was nuts now? — Louise Penny

... it's not the truth about others that will set you free, but the truth about yourself. — Louise Penny

She'd never actually smiled at a family reunion before. It felt odd. — Louise Penny

To remain conscious and continent was her new goal. — Louise Penny

Life is change. If you aren't growing and evolving, you're standing still, and the rest of the world is surging ahead. — Louise Penny

His heart filled his chest and ran to the end of his tail and the very tips of his considerable ears. It filled his head, squeezing out his brain. But Henri, the foundling, was a humanist, and while not particularly clever was the smartest creature Gamache knew. Everything he knew he knew by heart. — Louise Penny

Grief was dagger-shaped and sharp and pointed inward. It was made of fresh loss and old sorrow. Rendered and forged and sometimes polished. Irene Finney had taken her daughter's death and to that sorrow she'd added a long life of entitlement and disappointment, of privilege and pride. And the dagger she'd fashioned was taking a brief break from slashing her insides, and was now pointed outward. — Louise Penny

For Armand Gamache knew what not-nice was. He knew what cruelty, despair, horror were. And he knew what a forgotten, and precious quality 'nice'was. — Louise Penny

Books were everywhere in their large apartment. Histories, biographies, novels, studies on Quebec antiques, poetry. Placed in orderly bookcases. Just about every table had at least one book on it, and oftern several magazines. And the weekend newspapers were scattered on the coffee table in the living room, in front of the fireplace. If a visitor was the observant type, and made it further into the apartment to Gamache's study, he might see the story the books in there told. — Louise Penny

A good novel is a good novel, pointe finale. And I think what I'm writing is exactly that. — Louise Penny

from a distance you might see the big picture, but not the whole picture, you missed the details. Not everything was seen, from a distance. — Louise Penny

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. — Louise Penny

... 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. — Louise Penny

That's what I believe," said Ruth. "Peter didn't. Here was a man who was given everything. Talent, love, a peaceful place to live and create. And all he had to do was appreciate it." "And if he didn't?" "He would remain stone. And the deities would turn on him. They do, you know. They're generous, but they demand gratitude. — Louise Penny

Julian of Norwich, — Louise Penny

Joy doesn't ever leave, you know. It's always with you. And one day you'll find it again. — Louise Penny

she'd forgotten snow could be quite so beautiful. Snow, in her experience, was something that needed to be removed. It was a chore that fell from the sky. But — Louise Penny

The four sayings that lead to wisdom:
I was wrong
I'm sorry
I don't know
I need help — Louise Penny

the answers lay in flesh and blood, not in a book and not in a report. And so often not even in things corporeal, but in something that couldn't be held and contained and touched. The answers to his questions lay in the murky past and in the emotions hidden there. The — Louise Penny

Matthew 10:36," he'd said. "And a man's foes shall be they of his own household. Never forget that, Agent Lacoste. — Louise Penny

The women in the room chatted about love, about childhood, about losing parents, about Mr. Spock, about good books they'd read.
They mothered each other. — Louise Penny

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

Peter Morrow took no risks. He neither failed nor succeeded. There were no valleys, but neither were there mountains. Peter's landscape was flat. An endless, predictable desert. — Louise Penny

Turmoil shook loose all sorts of unpleasant truths. But it took peace to examine them. — Louise Penny

You weren't lost. You were exploring. There's a difference. — Louise Penny

Fear lives in the head. And courage lives in the heart. The job is to get from one to the other." "And between the two is the lump in the throat, — Louise Penny

Anyone so damaged as to cause this much harm led a life full of secrets and full of enemies. — Louise Penny

There are generally three parties to child abuse: the abused, the abuser and the bystander. — Louise Penny

Annie laughed. She had a face, a body, made not for a Paris runway but for good meals and books by the fire and laughter. She was constructed from, and for, happiness. But it had taken Annie Gamache a long while to find it. To trust it. — Louise Penny

Photos sat on the piano and shelves bulged with books, testament to a life well lived. — Louise Penny

... while men and women perished, and cities fell, symbols endured, grew. Symbols were immortal. — Louise Penny

Saw Gamache shaking his head he reconsidered. Not the maps? — Louise Penny

Almost invariably people expected that if you were a good person you shouldn't meet a bad end, that only the deserving are killed and certainly only the deserving are murdered. However well hidden and subtle, there was a sense that a murdered person had somehow asked for it. That's why the shock when someone they knew to be kind and good was a victim. There was a feeling that surely there had been a mistake. — Louise Penny

We choose our thoughts. We choose our perceptions. We choose our attitudes — Louise Penny

Believe the copy of this e-book you are reading — Louise Penny

Until the Quiet Revolution gave women back their bodies and Quebeckers back their lives. It invited the church to leave the womb and restrict itself to the altar. It almost worked. — Louise Penny

What people mistook for safety was in fact captivity. — Louise Penny

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. — Louise Penny

In Beauvoir's experience Darwin was way wrong. The fittest didn't survive, they were killed by the idiocy of their neighbors, who continued to bumble along oblivious. — Louise Penny

Gamache had asked not because he didn't know the answer, but because he wanted to see if Peter would lie to him. He had. And if he'd lie about that, what else had he lied about? — Louise Penny

He loved Clara. I miss a lot in life," said Gilbert. "But I have a nose for love." "Like a truffle pig," said Beauvoir, then regretted it when he saw the asshole saint's reaction. Then, unexpectedly, Gilbert smiled. "Exactly. I can smell it. Love has an aroma all its own, you know." Beauvoir looked at Gilbert, amazed by what he'd just heard. Maybe, he thought, this man was - "Smells like compost," said Gilbert. - an asshole after all. — Louise Penny

Beauvoir left their home wanting to call his wife and tell her how much he loved her, and then tell her what he believed in, and his fears and hopes and disappointments. To talk about something real and meaningful. He dialed his cell phone and got her. But the words got caught somewhere south of his throat. Instead he told her the weather had cleared, and she told him about the movie she'd rented. Then they both hung up. — Louise Penny

Now here's a good one:
you're lying on your deathbed.
You have one hour to live.
Who is it, exactly, you have needed
all these years to forgive? — Louise Penny

Now she sat in front of him, nearly submerged under layers of thick sweaters and blankets. She looked like a laundry hamper without a head. — Louise Penny

A good journalist, as you know, is a great listener. And so's a good writer. And I got to listen to people for almost 20 years. That serves me well, I hope, when I try to understand how a character might be feeling, or how they might react. — Louise Penny

He was drawn to the edge of things. To the places old mariners knew, and warned, "Beyond here be monsters." ... He stepped into the beyond, and found the monsters hidden deep inside all the reasonable, gentle, laughing people. He went where even they were afraid to go. — Louise Penny

Most people want to be led. But suppose they choose the wrong leader? They end up with the Donner party. — Louise Penny

Gamache knew people were like homes. Some were cheerful and bright, some gloomy. Some could look good on the outside but feel wretched on the interior. And some of the least attractive homes, from the outside, were kindly and warm inside.
He also knew the first few rooms were for public consumption. It was only in going deeper that he'd find the reality. And finally, inevitably, there was the last room, the one we keep locked, and bolted and barred, even from ourselves. Especially from ourselves. — Louise Penny

Their creations eventually die of neglect, of malnourishment. And sometimes, when that happens the artist also dies. — Louise Penny

FINE stood for Fucked up, Insecure, Neurotic, and Egotistical. — Louise Penny

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. — Louise Penny

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. — Louise Penny

It's vital to hear your own language, to see it written, to see it valued. — Louise Penny

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

Yeti. Big Foot. There was some old creature his grandmother had told him about. The Green Man. Half man, half tree. This was him. Beauvoir gripped his stick. — Louise Penny

Evil is unspectacular and always human, and shares our bed and eats at our own table, — Louise Penny

She knew that kindness kills. All her life she'd suspected this and so she'd only ever been cold and cruel. She'd faced kindness with cutting remarks. She'd curled her lips at smiling faces. She'd twisted every thoughtful, considerate act into an assault. Everyone who was nice to her, who was compassionate and loving, she rebuffed.
Because she'd loved them. Loved them with all her heart, and wouldn't see them hurt. Because she'd known all her life that the surest way to hurt someone, to maim and cripple them, was to be kind. If people were exposed, they die. Best to teach them to be armored, even if it meant she herself was forever alone. Sealed off from human touch. — Louise Penny

The Catholic Church wasn't just a part of his parents' live, and his grandparents', it ruled their lives. The priests told them what to eat, what to do, who to vote for, what to think. What to believe.
Told them to have more and more babies. Kept them pregnant and poor and ignorant.
They'd been beaten in school, scolded in church, abused in the back rooms.
And when, after generations of this, they'd finally walked away, the Church had accused them of being unfaithful. And threatened them with eternal damnation. — Louise Penny

Peter bent and examined the pile. Only country people, thought Beauvoir, were endlessly fascinated by shit. Country people and parents. — Louise Penny

She wasn't afraid to be wrong. And that, the Chief knew, was a great strength. — Louise Penny

No, I don't. I find them very superficial. Calculated. He's a good artist, but I think he could be a great one, if he could use more instinct and less technique. He's a very good draftsman. — Louise Penny

A brave man in a brave country. It was easy to be brave, when the country was also brave. But what happened if it wasn't? If it was corrupt, and grotesque, and greedy, and violent? — Louise Penny

Irene Finney filled the void with a child not loved then lost, but first lost, then loved. — Louise Penny

Gamache nodded. It was what made his job so fascinating, and so difficult. How the same person could be both kind and cruel, compassionate and wretched. Unraveling a murder was more about getting to know the people than the evidence. People who were contrary and contradictory, and who often didn't even know themselves. — Louise Penny

Like the street his gallery was on, Fortin had an attractive front, hiding quite a foul interior. He was opportunistic. He fed on the talent of others. Got rich on the talent of others. While most of the artists themselves barely scraped by, and took all the risks. — Louise Penny

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

... believing sarcasm and rude remarks kept the monsters at bay. They didn't. — Louise Penny

And yet,' Gamache continued in a pleasant voice, 'isn't that what's often taught in meditation? Not the absence of emotion, or swallowing them, but not allowing them to run the show? — Louise Penny

They lead "still" lives, waiting. - Myrna Landers
Waiting for what? - Armand Gamache
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. - Myrna — Louise Penny

Stick. It might look familiar to some of you,' she waited — Louise Penny

Sobriety isn't for cowards, Chief Inspector. Whatever you might think of an alcoholic, to get sober, really sober demands great honesty, and that demands great courage. Stopping drinking's the easy part. Then we have to face ourselves. Our demons. How many people are willing to do that? — Louise Penny

And fear. High school smelled of that more than anything else, even more than sweaty feet, cheap perfume and rotten bananas. — Louise Penny

Instead he stood erect, the snow insinuating itself down his collar and up his sleeves, plastering against his face and into his unblinking eyes. — Louise Penny