Louise Penny
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 makeCollection: Powerful
The four sayings that lead to wisdom: I was wrong I'm sorry I don't know I need helpCollection: Sorry
Fear lives in the head. And courage lives in the heart. The job is to get from one to the other.Collection: Jobs
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.Collection: Looks
No good ever comes from putting up walls. What people mistake for safety is in fact captivity. And few things thrive in captivity.Collection: Wall
Life is change. If you aren't growing and evolving, you're standing still, and the rest of the world is surging ahead.Collection: Life
Things are strongest where they're broken.Collection: Broken
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.Collection: Hero
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.Collection: Beautiful
How much more courage it took to be kind than to be cruel.Collection: Be Kind
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.Collection: Life
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.Collection: Offending
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.Collection: Falling In Love
But you want murderous feelings? Hang around librarians," confided Gamache. "All that silence. Gives them ideas.Collection: Ideas
It's a shame that creativity and sloth look exactly the same.Collection: Creativity
When someone stabs you it's not your fault that you feel pain.Collection: Pain
Don't mistake dramatics for a conscience.Collection: Mistake
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.Collection: Regret
Foolish people are never harmless. Stupidity accounts for as many crimes as anger and greed.Collection: People
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?Collection: Blessed
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.Collection: Beautiful
Better to accept the wretched truth than struggle, twisting to make a wish a reality.Collection: Struggle
But, like peace, comfort didn't come from hiding away or running away. Comfort first demanded courage.Collection: Running
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?Collection: Lying
I turned down all the requests for the rights to the books, for years, mostly because they wanted the rights to the characters, and to turn it into a TV series. This would have allowed them to do anything they wanted with the characters, and that just wasn't an option for me.Collection: Book
What are you afraid of? I'm afraid of not recognizing Paradise.Collection: Paradise
What people mistook for safety was in fact captivity.Collection: People
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.Collection: Real
Aid workers, when handing out food to starving people, quickly learn that the people fighting for it at the front are the people who need it least. It's the people sitting quietly at the back, too weak to fight, who need it the most. And so too with tragedy.Collection: Fighting
The night is a strawberry.Collection: Night
Let every man shovel out his own snow, and the whole city will be passable," said Gamache. Seeing Beauvoir's puzzled expression he added, "Emerson." "Lake and Palmer?" "Ralph and Waldo.Collection: Men
I'm just like this. I have no talent for choosing my battles. Life seems, strangely, like a battle to me. The whole thing.Collection: Battle
It is very, very dangerous to come between a person and their beliefs.Collection: Belief
Her voice was slightly accented but her French was perfect. Someone who'd not just learned the language but loved it. And it showed with every syllable. Gamache knew it was impossible to split language from culture. That without one the other withered. To love the language was to respect the culture.Collection: Love
Every year the hunters shot cows and horses and family pets and each other. And unbelievably, they sometimes shot themselves, perhaps in a psychotic episode where they mistook themselves for dinnerCollection: Horse
The question that haunted every investigation was 'why'.Collection: Investigation
Or - perhaps - I should just worry about my own behavior and let others be who they are.Collection: Worry
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.Collection: Giving
Every decade of my life I attempted to write a novel. But I had nothing to say. I was far too self-absorbed, and now I realize I was writing for others, so that they'd applaud me, see my genius, tell me how wonderful I am, or be jealous of my success.Collection: Jealous
A journalist also needs to be disciplined, and so do I. I am, essentially, lazy. Without discipline I'd be just a mass of gummy bears on the sofa instead of on book tour with my eighth novel.Collection: Book
I've seen enough successful writers who no longer seem to care when they are recognized with an award, and I think that's just tragic.Collection: Successful
Peter swept aside Yogi Tea and Harmony Herbal Blend, though he hesitated a second over the chamomile. .... But no. Violent death demanded Earl Grey.Collection: Tea
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.Collection: Character
To be honest, the only thing I ever really wanted to be was a writer - since I read 'Charlotte's Web' as a child.Collection: Children
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.Collection: Book
But there was no hiding from Conscience. Not in new homes and new cars. In travel. In meditation or frantic activity. In children, in good works. On tiptoes or bended knee. In a big career. Or a small cabin. It would find you. The past always did. Which was why... 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 wouldn't be afraid of this?Collection: Children
Winning doesn't mean my book is better than anyone else's. It means I'm very fortunate. And I should be very, very aware of that. And grateful.Collection: Book
In winter the very ground seemed to reach up and grab the elderly, yanking them to earth as though hungry for them.Collection: Winter
A good novel is a good novel, pointe finale. And I think what I'm writing is exactly that.Collection: Writing