All the Devils Are Here

Life can be cruel, as you know. But it can also be kind. Filled with wonders. You need to remember that. You have your own choice to make, Armand. What’re you going to focus on? What’s unfair, or all the wonderful things that happen? Both are true, both are real. Both need to be accepted. But which carries more weight with you?” Stephen tapped the boy’s chest. “The terrible or the wonderful? The goodness or the cruelty? Your life will be decided by that choice.

I just sit where I'm put, composed of stone and wishful thinking: That the deity that kills for pleasure will also heal, That in the midst of your nightmare, the final one, a kind lion will pick your soul up gently by the nape of the neck, And caress you into darkness and paradise. ~ Ruth Zardo, poet and character in All The Devils Are Here

Hell is the truth seen too late,

Hell is the truth seen too late,” said Reine-Marie as she poured out more coffee. “Thomas Hobbes.

history wasn’t just written by the victors. First it had to be erased and rewritten. Replacing troublesome truth with self-serving myth.

Patience. Patience. With patience comes choice, and with choice comes power.

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

C. S. Lewis wrote that we can create situations in which we are happy, but we cannot create joy. It just happens.

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

But then, Armand Gamache thought, where else would you find darkness but right up against the light? What greater triumph for evil than to ruin a garden?

It would be natural for some to feel that pressure and choose speed over quality. And try to hide it when something goes wrong. Not because they’re bad people, but because they’re people. That way lies tragedy.

We just don’t know. The key is to keep going. Joy might be just around the corner.

it didn’t feel wrong. It felt wretched. Horrific. A nightmare. But sometimes “right” felt like that.

Who hurt you once, so far beyond repair / that you would greet each overture with curling lip? The lines from Ruth Zardo’s poem exploded in his head. In his chest. Me, he realized with horror. I did.

Don’t believe everything you think. Chief Inspector Gamache wrote that on the board for the incoming cadets at the start of every year at the Sûreté academy, and it stayed there all year.

Less a hunter than an explorer, Armand Gamache delved into what people thought, but mostly how they felt. Because that was where actions were conceived. Noble acts. And acts of the greatest cruelty.

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.

He never mentioned any bequests to you or your family?' 'No.' 'Though it wouldn't be unreasonable'—with great effort, she held his stare—'to expect something. Maybe even something substantial.' 'It's certainly possible that Stephen's left his billions to us. And it would be only human to imagine what that would be like.' He smiled. 'Wouldn't you?' 'Would you?' 'Me?' His smile faded until he looked almost wistful, and shook his head. 'No. I never wanted anything from Stephen except his company.' A snort of derision escaped her. But he continued to look at her, unapologetic. Almost, she saw now, in a kindly way. Inviting her, it seemed, to understand. What it meant to love so completely that all you wanted from that person was companionship.

With patience comes choice, and with choice comes power.

Documents were destroyed. The archives themselves were in a shocking state after the war. They’d been ransacked by the Nazis, who burned anything that contradicted their worldview. We lost countless irreplaceable manuscripts. For instance, their insistence on an Aryan race. We had document after document proving there’s no such thing. It was a construct, a myth, created hundreds of years ago and resurrected by the Nazis.

But it was compassionate to spare them. Life can be cruel, as you know. But it can also be kind. Filled with wonders. You need to remember that. You have your own choice to make, Armand. What’re you going to focus on? What’s unfair, or all the wonderful things that happen? Both are true, both are real. Both need to be accepted. But which carries more weight with you? Stephen tapped the boy’s chest. The terrible or the wonderful? The goodness or the cruelty? Your life will be decided by that choice.

What’re you going to focus on? What’s unfair, or all the wonderful things that happen? Both are true, both are real. Both need to be accepted. But which carries more weight with you?” Stephen tapped the boy’s chest. “The terrible or the wonderful? The goodness or the cruelty?

A man naturally given to action, Jean-Guy had come late to the value of pausing. “It is solved by walking,” Gamache had often said. In the middle of a stressful case, the Chief would leave his office, and instead of doing something, he’d go for a walk.

Michael took me to Paris for the first time back in 1995. I was thirty-six years old and we’d been seeing each other for five months. He was invited to give a talk on childhood leukemia to a conference in Toulouse, and asked if I’d like to go along. When I regained consciousness I said, yes, yes, yes please! We flew out of Montréal in a snowstorm, almost missing the flight. Michael was, to be honest, a little vague on details, like departure times of planes, trains, buses. In fact, almost all appointments. This was the trip where I realized we each had strengths. Mine seemed to be actually getting us to places. His was making it fun once there. On our first night in Paris we went to a wonderful restaurant, then for a walk. At some stage he said, “I’d like to show you something. Look at this.” He was pointing to the trunk of a tree. Now, I’d actually seen trees before, but I thought there must be something extraordinary about this one. “Get up close,” he said. “Look at where I’m pointing.” It was dark, so my nose was practically touching his finger, lucky man. Then, slowly, slowly, his finger began moving, scraping along the bark. I was cross-eyed, following it. And then it left the tree trunk. And pointed into the air. I followed it. And there was the Eiffel Tower. Lit up in the night sky. As long as I live, I will never forget that moment. Seeing the Eiffel Tower with Michael. And the dear man, knowing the magic of it for a woman who never thought she’d see Paris, made it even more magical by making it a surprise. C. S. Lewis wrote that we can create situations in which we are happy, but we cannot create joy. It just happens. That moment I was surprised by complete and utter joy. A little more than a year earlier I knew that the best of life was behind me. I could not have been more wrong. In that year I’d gotten sober, met and fell in love with Michael, and was now in Paris. We just don’t know. The key is to keep going. Joy might be just around the corner

Hell is empty and all the devils are here.

truth is on the march and nothing will stop it.