Louise Penny Quotes

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

Life is choice. All day, everyday. Who we talk to, where we sit, what we say, how we say it. And our lives become defined by our choices. It's as simple and as complex as that. And as powerful. so when I'm observing that's what I'm watching for. The choices people make

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.

Fear lives in the head. And courage lives in the heart. The job is to get from one to the other.

No good ever comes from putting up walls. What people mistake for safety is in fact captivity. And few things thrive in captivity.

Myrna could spend happy hours browsing bookcases. She felt if she could just get a good look at a person’s bookcase and their grocery cart, she’d pretty much know who they were.

Few things are better in the world than a room full of librarians. I consider them literary heroes. The keepers and defenders of the written word.

How much more courage it took to be kind than to be cruel.

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.

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

Things are strongest where they're broken.

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.

But you want murderous feelings? Hang around librarians," confided Gamache. "All that silence. Gives them ideas.

What did falling in love do for you? Can you ever really explain it? It filled empty spaces I never knew were empty. It cured a loneliness I never knew I had. It gave me joy. And freedom. I think that was the most amazing part. I suddenly felt both embraced and freed at the same time.

It's a shame that creativity and sloth look exactly the same.

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.

What haunted people even, perhaps especially, on their deathbed? What chased them, tortured them and brought some of them to their knees? And [he] thought he had the answer. Regret. Regret for things said, things done, and things not done. Regret for the people they might have been. And failed to be.

When someone stabs you it's not your fault that you feel pain.

I was tired of seeing the Graces always depicted as beautiful young things. I think wisdom comes with age and life and pain. And knowing what matters.

Don't mistake dramatics for a conscience.

We're all blessed and we're all blighted, Chief Inspector," said Finney. "Everyday each of us does our sums. The question is, what do we count?

Foolish people are never harmless. Stupidity accounts for as many crimes as anger and greed.

Better to accept the wretched truth than struggle, twisting to make a wish a reality.

But, like peace, comfort didn't come from hiding away or running away. Comfort first demanded courage.

I had to learn compassion. Had to learn what it felt like to hate, and to forgive and to love and be loved. And to lose people close to me. Had to feel deep loneliness and sorrow. And then I could write.