The collection / 87 fragments

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Passages, proverbs, and questions carried across the ages.

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87 results · Page 4 of 4Play this collection ▷

01c. 1958 AD

I respect people who have such passion. Emile was saying. "I don't. I have a lot of interests, some I'm passionate about, but not to the exclusion of everything else. I sometimes wonder if that's necessary for geniuses to accomplish what they must, a singularity of purpose. We mere mortals just get in the way. Relationships are messy, distra

Louise Penny / quote

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02c. 1958 AD

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 / quote

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03c. 1958 AD

Don't mistake dramatics for a conscience.

Louise Penny / quote

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04c. 1958 AD

Conscience. Imagine being pursued by your own conscience….A mountain of conscience. Throwing a lengthening shadow. Growing. Darkening.

Louise Penny / quote

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05c. 1958 AD

Shakespeare: …the best way to peace is to have a still and quiet conscience. Or none at all, thought Gamache.

Louise Penny / quote

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06c. 1958 AD

Do you know the sums that I do?” “I count my blessings.

Louise Penny / quote

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07c. 1958 AD

Her voice was flat, in a way Myrna recognized from years of listening to people trying to rein in their emotions. To squash them down, flatten, them, and with them their words and their voices. Desperately trying to make the horrific sound mundane.

Louise Penny / quote

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08c. 1958 AD

In winter the very ground seemed to reach up and grab the elderly, yanking them to earth as though hungry for them.

Louise Penny / quote

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09c. 1958 AD

He'd shoved his toque and mitts into the sleeve of his parka when he'd come in the night before, and now, thrusting his right arm into the armhole, he hit the blockage. At a practiced shove the pompom of the toque crowned the cuff followed by his mitts, like a tiny birth.

Louise Penny / quote

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10c. 1958 AD

Beauvoir was quiet, watching the Chief, taking in the gleam in his eye, the enthusiasm as he described what he'd found. Not the physical landscape, but the emotional. The intellectual.Many might have thought the Chief Inspector was a hunter. He tracked down killers. But Jean Guy knew he wasn't that. Chief Inspector Gama he was an explorer by nature. He was never happier than when he was pushing the boundaries, exploring the internal terrain. Areas even the person themselves hadn't explored. Had never examined. Probably because it was too scary.

Louise Penny / quote

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11c. 1958 AD

…while men and women perished, and cities fell, symbols endured, grew. Symbols were immortal.

Louise Penny / quote

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12c. 1958 AD

Our lives are like a house. Some people are allowed on the lawn, some onto the porch, some get into the vestibule or the kitchen. The better friends are invited deeper into our home, into our living room.''And some are let into the bedroom,' said Gamache.

Louise Penny / quote

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13c. 1958 AD

There are generally three parties to child abuse: the abused, the abuser and the bystander.

Louise Penny / quote

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14c. 1958 AD

Do you know why we’re all happy here, monsieur? Because it’s the last house on the road.

Louise Penny / quote

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15c. 1958 AD

The reason Armand Gamache could go there was because it wasn't totally foreign to him. He knew it because he’d seen his own burned terrain, he’d walked off the familiar and comfortable path inside his own head and heart and seen what festered in the dark. And one day Jean Guy Beauvoir would look at his own monsters, and then be able to recognize others. And maybe this was the day and this was the case. He hoped so.

Louise Penny / quote

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