A Fatal Grace

When someone stabs you it's not your fault that you feel pain.

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.

Your beliefs become your thoughts Your thoughts become your words Your words become your actions Your actions become your destiny. Mahatma Ghandi,” he said. “There’s more, but I can’t remember it all.

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?

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.

I often think we should have tattooed on the back of whatever hand we use to shoot or write, 'I might be wrong.

Don't mistake dramatics for a conscience.

Where there is love, there is courage Where there is courage, there is peace Where there is peace, there is God And when you have God, you have everything.

In my teens my drug of choice was acceptance, in my twenties it was approval, in my thirties it was love, in my forties it was Scotch. That lasted a while,’ she admitted. ‘Now all I really crave is a good bowel movement.

Ring the bells that still can ring, Forget your perfect offering, There’s a crack in everything, That’s how the light gets in.

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.

Gabri and I follow the way of Häagen Das. It’s occasionally a rocky road.

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.

I've been desperately unhappy in my life." Her voice was quiet. "Have you, Chief Inspector?" It wasn't a response he could have predicted. He nodded. "I thought so. I think people who have had that experience and survived have a responsibility to help others. We can't let someone drown where we were saved.

So much more comforting to see bad in others; gives us all sorts of excuses for our own bad behavior. But good? No, only really remarkable people see the good in others.

When someone stabs you it’s not your fault that you feel pain.

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.

The bistro was his secret weapon in tracking down murderers. Not just in Three Pines, but in every town and village in Quebec. First he found a comfortable café or brasserie, or bistro, then he found the murderer. Because Armand Gamache knew something many of his colleagues never figured out. Murder was deeply human, the murdered and the murderer. To describe the murderer as a monstrosity, a grotesque, was to give him an unfair advantage. No. Murderers were human, and at the root of each murder was an emotion. Warped, no doubt. Twisted and ugly. But an emotion. And one so powerful it had driven a man to make a ghost. Gamache's job was to collect the evidence, but also to collect the emotions. And the only way he knew to do that was do get to know the people. To watch and listen. To pay attention, and the best way to do that was in a deceptively casual way in a deceptively casual setting. Like the bistro.

But I understand your doubts. They're what make you a great man, not your certainties.

Just because it's the truth doesn't make it less insulting.

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

All the mistakes I’ve made have been because I’ve assumed something and then acted as though it was fact. Very dangerous, Agent Lemieux. Believe me. I wonder if you haven’t already leaped to a false conclusion?

He walked over the arched stone bridge, enjoying the silence of the village. Snow did that. It laid down a simple, clean duvet that muffled all sound and kept everything beneath alive. Farmers and gardeners in Quebec wished for two things in winter: lots of snow and continuous cold. An early thaw was a disaster. It tricked the young and vulnerable into exposing themselves, only to be nipped in the root. A killing frost.

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

If you don’t know something, ask. You have to be able to admit you don’t know something, otherwise you’ll just get more and more confused, or worse, you’ll jump to a false conclusion. All the mistakes I’ve made have been because I’ve assumed something and then acted as though it was fact.

All children are sad, but some get over it.

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

When does a bush that burns become a Burning Bush?

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.