Top 450 Louise Penny Quotes (2024 Update)
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201. “Below that was the thrum of bumblebees climbing in and over and around the peonies. Getting lost. Bumbling around. It looked comical, ridiculous. But then so much did, unless you knew.”

— Louise Penny

202. “It’s so easy to get mired in the all too obvious cruelty of the world. It’s natural. But to really heal, we need to recognize the goodness too.”

— Louise Penny

203. “He read the familiar first lines of the book and felt the calm come over him, like a comforter.”

— Louise Penny

204. “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

205. “You’re catastrophizing, allowing fear into the driver’s seat. You’re reacting to things that haven’t happened and behaving as though they have, or are inevitable. Focus on what is actually happening, here and now.” “Surrender to reality,” he said with a small grin and, grabbing a tissue, he rubbed his eyes. It was one of Hardye Moel’s favorite sayings. “Yes. Stop fighting battles that don’t exist. Focus on what does.”

— Louise Penny

206. “To be honest, the only thing I ever really wanted to be was a writer – since I read ‘Charlotte’s Web’ as a child.”

— Louise Penny

207. “I asked him to leave because he stopped caring for me, stopped supporting me. Not because I’d stopped caring for him.”

— Louise Penny

208. “Having a friend, Chief Inspector. All you need is one. Makes all the difference.”

— Louise Penny

209. “Consequences,” said Gamache. “We must always consider the consequences of our actions. Or inaction. It won’t necessarily change what we do, but we need to be aware of the effect.”

— Louise Penny

210. “A will, an estate, could become about more than money, property, possessions. Who was left the most could be interpreted as who was loved the most. There were different sorts of greed. Of need.”

— Louise Penny

211. “I’m sorry.’ ‘I was wrong.’ ‘I don’t know.’” As he listed them, Chief Inspector Gamache raised a finger, until his palm was open. “’I need help.”

— Louise Penny

212. “You can’t get milk from a hardware store. So stop asking for something that can’t be given. And look for what is offered. She saw the fork of food, and the thin lips that rarely smiled at them, blowing on it.”

— Louise Penny

213. “No,” said Armand. “The outside won’t change, but the inside might. We can but hope.” “We can do more than that, Chief Inspector, if we choose. Hope on its own is rarely enough.”

— Louise Penny

214. “She picked up her book and tried to read but it was heavy in her hands. She struggled to hold it, wanting to finish the story, wanting to know how it ended. She was afraid she’d run out of time before she ran out of book.”

— Louise Penny

215. “No. It was almost impossible to electrocute someone these days, unless you were the governor of Texas.”

— Louise Penny

216. “She knew how the Chief Inspector preferred decorum at the site of a murder, especially in the presence of the corpse. It was rare. Most murder scenes were filled with smart-ass and often gruesome comments, made by men and women frightened by what they saw, and believing sarcasm and rude remarks kept the monsters at bay. They didn’t.”

— Louise Penny

217. “He was like an addict before a fix. Book freaks are like that, and not just old guys. Look at kids lining up for the latest installment of their favorite books. Stories, they’re addictive.” Gamache.”

— Louise Penny

218. “As far as the official mapmakers were concerned Three Pines didn’t exist. It had never been surveyed. Never plotted. No GPS or sat nav system, no matter how sophisticated, would ever find the little village. It only appeared as though by accident over the edge of the hill. Suddenly. It could not be found unless you were lost.”

— Louise Penny

219. “First you scare them, then you offer them your false hope. It’s disgusting. But it works. And now the politicians, familiar with the power of fear, have bought your potion wholesale.”

— Louise Penny

220. “What kills can’t be seen, the Chief had warned Beauvoir. That’s what makes it so dangerous. It’s not a gun or a knife or a fist. It’s not anything you can see coming. It’s an emotion. Rancid, spoiled. And waiting for a chance to strike.”

— Louise Penny

221. “If love was compass enough, said Armand quietly, there would be no missing children.”

— Louise Penny

222. “But he realized Henri already knew all he’d ever need. He knew he was loved and he knew how to love.”

— Louise Penny

223. “And I would never, ever mock the power of love. But it can also distort. Slip over into desperation and delusion.”

— Louise Penny

224. “While Henri had a huge heart, he had quite a modest brain. His head was taken up almost entirely by his ears. In fact, his head seemed simply a sort of mount for those ears. Fortunately Henri didn’t really need his head. He kept all the important things in his heart.”

— Louise Penny

225. “Gamache enjoyed going to churches for their music and the beauty of the language and the stillness. But he felt closer to God in his Volvo.”

— Louise Penny

226. “Haven’t you ever heard of an artist’s muse?” the barman asked. “They all seem to either have one or want one. Me, all I want is peace and quiet.”

— Louise Penny

227. “There is a higher court than courts of justice and that is the court of conscience. It supersedes all other courts.”

— Louise Penny

228. “When I miss things or let them pass they gather in a heap then rise up and take a life. So, I try not to.”

— Louise Penny

229. “It wasn’t really, he knew, about less fear. It was about more courage.”

— Louise Penny

230. “If kind acts could protect us from tragedy, thought Lacoste, the world would be a kinder place.”

— Louise Penny

231. “Not everything buried is actually dead. For many, the past is alive.”

— Louise Penny

232. “Beauvoir knew that almost everyone did four things, when faced with modern technology. First they created passwords. Then they forgot them. Then, on being forced to create new ones, they simplified and went with only one, which opened everything. And then they wrote it down. And hid that paper somewhere. That way they only had to remember the place, not the password.”

— Louise Penny

233. “Irene Finney filled the void with a child not loved then lost, but first lost, then loved.”

— Louise Penny

234. “At this discovery Matthew Croft’s legs gave way and he sank to the cold concrete floor, to a place no rhyming verse existed. He had finally been hurt beyond poetry.”

— Louise Penny

235. “It was funny how obsessed people believed others equally obsessed, or even interested.”

— Louise Penny

236. “Everything he let go of had claw marks on it.”

— Louise Penny

237. “The Chief believed if you sift through evil, at the very bottom you’ll find good. He believed that evil has its limits. Beauvoir didn’t. He believed that if you sift through good, you’ll find evil. Without borders, without brakes, without limit.”

— Louise Penny

238. “How many clients had Myrna sat across from as they complained about having been “done wrong”? Whose grip on grievances was so tight it strangled reason. They’d give up sanity before giving up these injustices.”

— Louise Penny

239. “But Armand always said people react differently to death, and it was folly to judge anyone and double folly to judge what people do when faced with sudden, violent death. Murder. They weren’t themselves.”

— Louise Penny

240. “Rumors are hard to prove, but they’re even harder to disprove. We both know that character assassination is easy. All it takes is a suggestion. A well-placed word in someone’s ear.”

— Louise Penny

241. “Not everything needed to be brought into the light, he knew. Not every truth needed to be told.”

— Louise Penny

242. “In time, it wasn’t all that long ago, but measured in events, it was an eternity.”

— Louise Penny

243. “As they trudged through the snow toward Clara’s pretty little cottage, Ruth lost her footing. Haniya grabbed her before she fell. She held Ruth’s hand for the rest of the way, and wondered if maybe the key was not in being held, but in holding.”

— Louise Penny

244. “Each day they tracked down killers. Each day they put their own lives on the line. And in return they were scapegoated. Chained to the ground, food for politicians looking for reelection.”

— Louise Penny

245. “Three craggy pine trees had stood at the far end of the green for as long as anyone remembered, like wise men who’d found what they were looking for.”

— Louise Penny

246. “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

247. “You do know that the earth is round.” “The earth might be, but human nature isn’t. It has caverns and abysses and all sorts of traps.”

— Louise Penny

248. “Tea lights were lit and placed on the table and around the garden, so that it looked like large fireflies had settled in for the evening.”

— Louise Penny

249. “They don’t teach this at medical school, but I’ve seen it in real life. People dying in bits and pieces. A series of petites morts. Little deaths. They lose their sight, their hearing, their independence. Those are the physical ones. But there’re others. Less obvious, but more fatal. They lose heart. They lose hope. They lose faith. They lose interest. And finally, they lose themselves.”

— Louise Penny

250. “Plenty of time for a close friendship to turn to hate. As only a good friendship could. The conduit to the heart was already created.”

— Louise Penny