Quotes from A Great Reckoning

“Don’t believe everything you think,” said Gamache, before releasing the hand and opening the door. “Pema Chödrön. A Buddhist nun.”
― Louise Penny, quote from A Great Reckoning

“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, quote from A Great Reckoning

“The lines of his face were the longitude and latitude of his life.”
― Louise Penny, quote from A Great Reckoning

“Things are strongest where they’re broken,”
― Louise Penny, quote from A Great Reckoning

“Love and worry. They went hand in hand. Fellow travelers.”
― Louise Penny, quote from A Great Reckoning

“It was a careworn face. But most of the lines, if followed back like a trail, would lead to happiness. To the faces a face made when laughing or smiling, or sitting quietly enjoying the day.

Though some of those lines led elsewhere. Into a wilderness, into the wild. Where terrible things had happened. Some of the lines of his face led to events inhuman and abominable. To horrific sights. To unspeakable acts.

Some of them his.

The lines of his face were the longitude and latitude of his life.”
― Louise Penny, quote from A Great Reckoning

“emotions were far from linear. They were circles and waves and dots and triangles. But they were rarely a straight line."
Chapter 13 · Page 114 · Location 2031”
― Louise Penny, quote from A Great Reckoning

“Marcus Aurelius. The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.”
― Louise Penny, quote from A Great Reckoning

“When someone shoots at us, we return fire,” said Jean-Guy. Now Jacques did nod. “But it’s equally important that when someone is kind to us, we return that as well,”
― Louise Penny, quote from A Great Reckoning

“One must always have a song in the heart.” “And an éclair in the hand,”
― Louise Penny, quote from A Great Reckoning

“Anyone could be clever. Anyone could be smart. Anyone could be taught. But not everyone was kind."
Chapter 1 · Page 10 · Location 202”
― Louise Penny, quote from A Great Reckoning

“It’s too easy to feed the anger. Too cowardly to stoke the hate. You must look inside yourself and decide who you are and who you want to be. Character is not created in times like these. It’s revealed. This is a trying time. A testing time. Be careful.”
Chapter 14 · Page 122 · Location 2188”
― Louise Penny, quote from A Great Reckoning

“Ruth believed in precycling. An evolution on recycling. She made use of things before people threw them out.”
― Louise Penny, quote from A Great Reckoning

“There is always a road back. If we have the courage to look for it, and take it. I'm sorry. I was wrong. I don't know. I need help. These are the signposts. The cardinal directions.”
― Louise Penny, quote from A Great Reckoning

“She suspected if they looked in Gamache’s bedside table, they’d find all sorts of lost souls he put there for safekeeping. And maybe a baguette.”
― Louise Penny, quote from A Great Reckoning

“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, quote from A Great Reckoning

“The world turned upside down,' Beauvoir continued. 'It was at once more beautiful and more frightening than you'd been led to believe. And suddenly you didn't know what to do. Who to trust. Where to turn. It's terrifying. Being lost is so much worse than being on the wrong road. That's why people stay on it for so long.”
― Louise Penny, quote from A Great Reckoning

“Change the facts and you’ll change the feelings.”
Chapter 20 · Page 175 · Location 3170”
― Louise Penny, quote from A Great Reckoning

“Give bad news swiftly, and spread out the good news. Machiavelli.” Charpentier”
― Louise Penny, quote from A Great Reckoning

“A belief of convenience isn't much use, is it?”
― Louise Penny, quote from A Great Reckoning

“What happened when you gave in to temptation. When you listened to the fallen angels of your nature.”
― Louise Penny, quote from A Great Reckoning

“He would be the object lesson, the walking warning to the cadets. What happened when you gave in to temptation. When you listened to the fallen angels of your nature.”
― Louise Penny, quote from A Great Reckoning

“It was a post her former colleagues no doubt viewed as a significant step down. But Reine Marie wasn’t interested in steps. She’d arrived at where she wanted to be. No more steps."
Chapter 1 · Page 5 · Location 101”
― Louise Penny, quote from A Great Reckoning

“The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.”
― Louise Penny, quote from A Great Reckoning

“When I’m afraid, I always ask myself, what’s the worst that can happen?”
Chapter 5 · Page 41 · Location 733”
― Louise Penny, quote from A Great Reckoning

“It is the chiefest point of happiness, she scribbled quickly, before the Commander could see, that a man is willing to be what he is."
Chapter 6 · Page 53 · Location 957”
― Louise Penny, quote from A Great Reckoning

About the author

Popular quotes

“Cats have many gifts that are denied humans, and yet we tend to rate them by human standards. To understand a cat, you must realize that he has his own gifts, his own viewpoint, even his own morality. A cat’s lack of speech does not make him a lower animal. Cats have a contempt of speech. Why should they talk when they can communicate without words? They manage very well among themselves, and they patiently try to make their thoughts known to humans. But in order to read a cat, you must be relaxed and receptive.”
― Lilian Jackson Braun, quote from The Cat Who Could Read Backwards

“Another pair of hands joined us, but I was so completely submerged into myself that I might as well have closed my eyes and disappeared in the dark. In here, nothing could touch me. In here, Henry was everywhere. In here, it was winter again, and we curled up together underneath the down comforter in the Underworld as the hours passed by. His chest was warm under my palm, and his heart beat against my fingers, steady and eternal. In here, no one died.”
― Aimee Carter, quote from The Goddess Inheritance

“Evil don’t die. It just waits.”
― Jonathan Maberry, quote from Ghost Road Blues

“Come, boy, it is time for a lesson. Let me teach you the power of words,”
― John Gwynne, quote from Malice

“It's never too late to fix things with people you love, Massie. Kendra said.

That's true. William agreed.”
― Lisi Harrison, quote from Boys "R" Us

Interesting books

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.