566 Quotes by Louise Penny

Take this in to them, s'il vous plaît," Chef Véronique's large ruddy hand trembled slightly as she motioned to the trays. "And bring out the pots already there. They'll want fresh tea."She knew this was a lie. What the family wanted they could never have again. But tea was all she could give them. So she made it. Over and over.

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.

Don't get me wrong, I believe in using your head, but not in spending too much time in there. Fear lives in the head, and courage lives in the heart. The job is to get from one to the other.

Chief Inspector Gamache’s says there are ‘four sentences that lead to wisdom: I don’t know. I need help. I’m sorry. I was wrong.

It is sweet and right to die for your country…. an old and dangerous lie. It might be necessary, but it is never sweet and rarely right. It’s a tragedy.

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.

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.

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

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.