“Life is choice. All day, everyday. Who we talk to, where we sit, what we say, how we say it. And our lives become defined by our choices. It's as simple and as complex as that. And as powerful. so when I'm observing that's what I'm watching for. The choices people make”
― Louise Penny, quote from Still Life
“Myrna could spend happy hours browsing bookcases. She felt if she could just get a good look at a person’s bookcase and their grocery cart, she’d pretty much know who they were.”
― Louise Penny, quote from Still Life
“Life is change. If you aren't growing and evolving, you're standing still, and the rest of the world is surging ahead.”
― Louise Penny, quote from Still Life
“I've been treating you with courtesy and respect because that's the way I choose to treat everyone. But never, ever mistake kindness with weakness.”
― Louise Penny, quote from Still Life
“I think many people love their problems. Gives them all sorts of excuses for not growing up and getting on with life.”
― Louise Penny, quote from Still Life
“Life is change. If you aren't growing and evolving you're standing still, and the rest of the world is surging ahead. Most of these people are very immature. They lead "still" lives, waiting.”
― Louise Penny, quote from Still Life
“Peter swept aside Yogi Tea and Harmony Herbal Blend, though he hesitated a second over the chamomile. .... But no. Violent death demanded Earl Grey.”
― Louise Penny, quote from Still Life
“They waited for life to happen to them. They waited for someone to save them. Or heal them. They did nothing for themselves.”
― Louise Penny, quote from Still Life
“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, quote from Still Life
“Three Pines wasn’t on any tourist map, being too far off any main or even secondary road. Like Narnia, it was generally found unexpectedly and with a degree of surprise that such an elderly village should have been hiding in this valley all along. Anyone fortunate enough to find it once usually found their way back.”
― Louise Penny, quote from Still Life
“The fault lies with us, and only us. It’s not fate, not genetics, not bad luck, and it’s definitely not Mom and Dad. Ultimately it’s us and our choices. But, but’ – now her eyes shone and she almost vibrated with excitement – ‘the most powerful, spectacular thing is that the solution rests with us as well. We’re the only ones who can change our lives, turn them around. So all those years waiting for someone else to do it are wasted.”
― Louise Penny, quote from Still Life
“They lead "still" lives, waiting. - Myrna Landers
Waiting for what? - Armand Gamache
Waiting for someone to save them. Expecting someone to save them or at least protect them from the big, bad world. The thing is no one else can save them because the problem is theirs and so is the solution. - Myrna”
― Louise Penny, quote from Still Life
“I'm just like this. I have no talent for choosing my battles. Life seems, strangely, like a battle to me. The whole thing.”
― Louise Penny, quote from Still Life
“Abby Hoffman said we should all eat what we kill. That would put an end to war.”
― Louise Penny, quote from Still Life
“Most of us are great with change, as long it was our idea. But change imposed from the outside can send some people into a tailspin. - Myrna Landers”
― Louise Penny, quote from Still Life
“Every year the hunters shot cows and horses and family pets and each other. And unbelievably, they sometimes shot themselves, perhaps in a psychotic episode where they mistook themselves for dinner”
― Louise Penny, quote from Still Life
“There are four things that lead to wisdom. You ready for them?'
She nodded, wondering when the police work would begin.
"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. I was wrong'.”
― Louise Penny, quote from Still Life
“Everyday for Lucy's entire dog life Jane had sliced a banana for breakfast and had miraculously dropped one of the perfect disks on to the floor where it sat for an instant before being gobbled up. Every morning Lucy's prayers were answered, confirming her belief that God was old and clumsy and smelt like roses and lived in the kitchen.
But no more.
Lucy knew her God was dead. And she now knew the miracle wasn't the banana, it was the hand that offered the banana.”
― Louise Penny, quote from Still Life
“His theory is that life is loss,’ said Myrna after a moment. ‘Loss of parents, loss of loves, loss of jobs. So we have to find a higher meaning in our lives than these things and people. Otherwise we’ll lose ourselves.”
― Louise Penny, quote from Still Life
“Life is choice. All day, everyday. Who we talk to, where we sit, what we say, how we say it. And our lives become defined by our choices. It’s as simple and as complex as that. And as powerful. So when I’m observing, that’s what I’m watching for. The choices people make.”
― Louise Penny, quote from Still Life
“Most of us are great with change, as long as it was our idea.”
― Louise Penny, quote from Still Life
“Life is loss. But out of that, as the book stresses, comes freedom. If we can accept that nothing is permanent, and change is inevitable, if we can adapt, then we’re going to be happier people.”
― Louise Penny, quote from Still Life
“Living our lives was like living in a long house. We entered as babies at one end, and we exited when our time came. And in between we moved through this one, great, long room. Everyone we ever met, and every thought and action lived in that room with us. Until we made peace with the less agreeable parts of our past they’d continue to heckle us from way down the long house. And sometimes the really loud, obnoxious ones told us what to do, directing our actions even years later.”
― Louise Penny, quote from Still Life
“Almost invariably people expected that if you were a good person you shouldn't meet a bad end, that only the deserving are killed and certainly only the deserving are murdered. However well hidden and subtle, there was a sense that a murdered person had somehow asked for it. That's why the shock when someone they knew to be kind and good was a victim. There was a feeling that surely there had been a mistake.”
― Louise Penny, quote from Still Life
“Beauvoir left their home wanting to call his wife and tell her how much he loved her, and then tell her what he believed in, and his fears and hopes and disappointments. To talk about something real and meaningful. He dialed his cell phone and got her. But the words got caught somewhere south of his throat. Instead he told her the weather had cleared, and she told him about the movie she'd rented. Then they both hung up.”
― Louise Penny, quote from Still Life
“Clara shrugged and immediately knew her betrayal of Peter. In one easy movement she'd distanced herself from his bad behavior, even thought she herself was responsible for it. Just before everyone had arrived, she'd told Peter about her adventure with Gamache. Animated and excited she'd gabbled on about her box and the woods and the exhilarating climb up the ladder to the blind. But her wall of words hid from her a growing quietude. She failed to notice his silence, his distance, until it was too late and he'd retreated all the way to his icy island. She hated that place. From it he stood and stared, judged, and lobbed shards of sarcasm.
'You and your hero solve Jane's death?'
'I thought you'd be pleased,' she half lied. She actually hadn't thought at all, and if she had, she probably could have predicted his reaction. But since he was comfortably on his Inuk island, she'd retreat to hers, equipped with righteous indignation and warmed by moral certitude. She threw great logs of 'I'm right, you're an unfeeling bastard' onto the fire and felt secure and comforted.”
― Louise Penny, quote from Still Life
“In my experience people who have been hurt either pass it on and become abusive themselves or they develop a great kindness.”
― Louise Penny, quote from Still Life
“He was very clever, he gave the impression of being tolerant and kind, while actually being very dark, very cunning.”
― Louise Penny, quote from Still Life
“Evil is unspectacular and always human, and shares our bed and eats at our own table,”
― Louise Penny, quote from Still Life
Louise Penny
Born place: in Toronto, Canada
Born date July 1, 1958
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“It’s not like I want to be friends with you now, Frankie. Don’t even talk to me, I seriously can’t deal with you.
I’m just writing to say I underestimated you. I significantly underestimated you. I don’t actually think it is possible to overestimate you. Although you are not a nice person.”
― E. Lockhart, quote from The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks
“You’d have known that without being told if you let yourself think about it.”
― China Miéville, quote from Embassytown
“No matter how much kids beg to be treated like adults, nobody likes to let go of their childhood. You wish for it and dream of it and the second you have it, you wonder what you've done. You wonder what it is you've become.”
― Daniel H. Wilson, quote from Robopocalypse
“For the sake of the world, they had to cling to what they knew, not what their emotions demanded from them.”
― Ted Dekker, quote from The Complete Circle Series
“It seems to me then as if all the moments of our life occupy the same space, as if future events already existed and were only waiting for us to find our way to them at last, just as when we have accepted an invitation we duly arrive in a certain house at a given time.”
― W.G. Sebald, quote from Austerlitz (Penguin Essentials)
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Anatomy of a MisfitBookQuoters 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.
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