Top 450 Louise Penny Quotes (2026 Update)
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301. “Sauve qui peut.”

— Louise Penny

302. “The morning after their deaths, Armand had gone into their room. The scent of them, the sense of them, almost too much to bear. The clothing. The book. The bookmark. The bedside clock, still ticking. He’d thought that strange. Surely it should have stopped.”

— Louise Penny

303. “But he knew he needn’t worry. This man was afraid of nothing. “I count my blessings.” He turned and saw Irene on the terrasse, as though he’d sensed her there. “We’re all blessed and we’re all blighted, Chief Inspector,” said Finney. “Every day each of us does our sums. The question is, what do we count?” The old man brought his hand to his head and removed his hat, offering it to Gamache.”

— Louise Penny

304. “Before laptops and BlackBerries and all the other tools that mistook information for knowledge. It was an old library, filled with old books and dusty old thoughts.”

— Louise Penny

305. “Armand Gamache had seen the worst. But he’d also seen the best. Often in the same person.”

— Louise Penny

306. “Gamache was the best of them, the smartest and bravest and strongest because he was willing to go into his own head alone, and open all the doors there, and enter all the dark rooms. And make friends with what he found there. And he went into the dark, hidden rooms in the minds of others. The minds of killers. And he faced down whatever monsters came at him. He went to places Beauvoir had never even dreamed existed.”

— Louise Penny

307. “But they both knew that words were weapons too, and when fashioned into a story their power was almost limitless.”

— Louise Penny

308. “But sometimes that comfort was an illusion. Masquerading as protecting, while actually imprisoning.”

— Louise Penny

309. “In my experience people who have been hurt either pass it on and become abusive themselves or they develop a great kindness.”

— Louise Penny

310. “There is no way either would get into their wedding clothes. But they’d grown in other ways as well, and Gamach figured it was a good deal. If life meant growth in all directions, it was fine with him.”

— Louise Penny

311. “There was nothing right or good in dying for your country. A necessity, sometimes, yes. But always a tragedy. Not an aspiration.”

— Louise Penny

312. “He now knew that happiness and kindness went together.”

— Louise Penny

313. “Gabri plugged the oven and the espresso machine into the generator,’ explained Olivier. ‘No lights, but we have the necessities.”

— Louise Penny

314. “Good hearts get hurt. Good hearts get broken, Armand. And then they lash out.”

— Louise Penny

315. “Armand stood up, still holding Stephen’s hand, and said, “It’s time. Let him go.” Then he sat back down, his legs weak. If this was the right thing to do, why did it feel so wrong? But no, it didn’t feel wrong. It felt wretched. Horrific. A nightmare. But sometimes “right” felt like that.”

— Louise Penny

316. “Entitlement was, she knew, a terrible thing. It chained the person to their victimhood. It gobbled up all the air around it. Until the person lived in a vacuum, where nothing good could flourish.”

— Louise Penny

317. “They had such a profound effect on those who sang and heard them that the ancient chants became known as “the beautiful mystery.”

— Louise Penny

318. “He stared for ten seconds or more, which, when eating a chocolate cake isn’t much, but when staring, is.”

— Louise Penny

319. “She wasn’t afraid to be wrong. And that, the Chief knew, was a great strength.”

— Louise Penny

320. “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

321. “Yes, the real danger always came from the thing you couldn’t see.”

— Louise Penny

322. “My favorite quote from Thoreau is also from Walden,” said Gamache. “A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone.”

— Louise Penny

323. “When Peter walked into a room he always swept it until he found Clara. And then he relaxed.”

— Louise Penny

324. “I don’t know. I was wrong. I’m sorry.” Lacoste recited them slowly, lifting a finger to count them off. “I need help,” the Chief said, completing the statements. The ones he’d taught young Agent Lacoste many years ago. The ones he’d recited to all his new agents.”

— Louise Penny

325. “Myrna understood how damaging it was to compare pain. To dismiss hurt just because it wasn’t the worst.”

— Louise Penny

326. “Friend of Bill was code. For a member of AA. Of which this Anton was clearly one. It was like finding a member of his tribe, unexpectedly. The two men stood in the warm kitchen, the sleet hitting the windows, and realized that while they knew nothing about each other, they actually knew each other better than almost anyone else on earth.”

— Louise Penny

327. “Rules meant order. Without them they’d be killing each other. It began with butting in, with parking in disabled spaces, with smoking in elevators. And it ended in murder.”

— Louise Penny

328. “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.”

— Louise Penny

329. “I’m saying people change.” She held up her hands to ward off Clara’s protests. “I know, it’s easy to say. And it doesn’t undo the damage. But we’ve seen changes of heart. Changes of perception. It happens. Racists, homophobes, misogynists, they can change. And some do.” “Truth and reconciliation,” said Clara. “Yes. The truth must come first. And then, maybe, reconciliation. Maybe.”

— Louise Penny

330. “It seemed Yolande had become so self-absorbed she no longer existed. She’d finally absorbed herself.”

— Louise Penny

331. “They are four sentences we learn to say, and mean.’ Gamache held up his hand as a fist and raised a finger with each point. ‘I don’t know. I need help. I’m sorry. And one other.’ Gamache thought for a moment but couldn’t bring it to mind.”

— Louise Penny

332. “The reason “belonging” was so potent, so attractive, so much a part of the human yearning, was that it also meant safety, and loyalty. If you were “one of us” you were protected.”

— Louise Penny

333. “And fear. High school smelled of that more than anything else, even more than sweaty feet, cheap perfume and rotten bananas.”

— Louise Penny

334. “He remembered how it felt to find himself in the library, away from possible attack but surrounded by things far more dangerous than what roamed the school corridors. For here thoughts were housed.”

— Louise Penny

335. “It’s like drinking acid,” said Myrna, “and expecting the other person to die.” Gamache nodded.”

— Louise Penny

336. “Dreadful deeds were obvious. The divine was often harder to see.”

— Louise Penny

337. “Recruiters, for terrorist cells and police forces and armies, relied on this simple truth: if you got people young enough, they could be made to do just about anything.”

— Louise Penny

338. “Not everyone makes the boat, she thought.”

— Louise Penny

339. “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.”

— Louise Penny

340. “Where once his grandparents put up crucifixes and images of the benediction on their walls, he and Reine-Marie put up books on theirs. History books. Reference books. Biographies. Fiction, nonfiction. Stories lined the walls and both insulated them from the outside world and connected them to it.”

— Louise Penny

341. “As a good rule of thumb, if you have to lie, you might be doing something wrong.”

— Louise Penny

342. “Maybe that’s what old men are for. To make decisions that no young man can.” He was watching Gamache closely. “Or should have to.”

— Louise Penny

343. “Homes, Gamache knew, were a self-portrait. A person’s choice of color, furnishing, pictures.”

— Louise Penny

344. “After more than a thousand years,” he continued, “an enemy finally broke through. Not because of superior firepower. Not because the Manchus were better fighters or strategists. They weren’t. The Manchus breached the Great Wall and took Beijing because someone opened a gate. From the inside. As simple as that. A general, a traitor, let them in and an empire fell.”

— Louise Penny

345. “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

346. “We knew who would want him found, Dr Croix, but who wants him to remain buried?”

— Louise Penny

347. “But I understand your doubts. They’re what make you a great man, not your certainties.”

— Louise Penny

348. “All will be as it should, if we just do our best.”

— Louise Penny

349. “It was no use telling her he understood. Or that it was all right. She’d earned the right to no easy answer.”

— Louise Penny

350. “And she now knew the miracle wasn’t the banana, it was the hand that offered the banana.”

— Louise Penny