“What did falling in love do for you? Can you ever really explain it? It filled empty spaces I never knew were empty. It cured a loneliness I never knew I had. It gave me joy. And freedom. I think that was the most amazing part. I suddenly felt both embraced and freed at the same time.”
― Louise Penny, quote from The Beautiful Mystery
“One of the elders told him that when he was a boy his grandfather came to him one day and said he had two wolves fighting inside him. One was gray, the other black. The gray one wanted his grandfather to be courageous, and patient, and kind. The other, the black one, wanted his grandfather to be fearful and cruel. This upset the boy, and he thought about it for a few days then returned to his grandfather. He asked, 'Grandfather, which of the wolves will win?'
The abbot smiled slightly and examined the Chief Inspector. 'Do you know what his grandfather said?'
Gamache shook his head. . . .
'The one I feed,' said Dom Philippe.”
― Louise Penny, quote from The Beautiful Mystery
“Beauvoir knew that the root of all evil wasn’t money. No, what created and drove evil was fear. Fear of not having enough money, enough food, enough land, enough power, enough security, enough love. Fear of not getting what you want, or losing what you have.”
― Louise Penny, quote from The Beautiful Mystery
“Had peace and quiet become so rare that when finally found they could be mistaken for something grotesque and unnatural? It would appear so.”
― Louise Penny, quote from The Beautiful Mystery
“Plenty of time for a close friendship to turn to hate. As only a good friendship could. The conduit to the heart was already created.”
― Louise Penny, quote from The Beautiful Mystery
“The glass was old. Leaded. Imperfect. And it was the imperfections that were creating the play of light.”
― Louise Penny, quote from The Beautiful Mystery
“We can all fall,” said the abbot. “But perhaps not as hard and not as fast and not as far as someone who spends his life on the ascent.”
― Louise Penny, quote from The Beautiful Mystery
“In trying to capture the beautiful mystery, this monk had invented written music. Not yet notes, what he’d written became known as neumes.”
― Louise Penny, quote from The Beautiful Mystery
“The Beautiful Mystery Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #8:
"Do you know why our emblem is two wolves intertwined?" Gamache shook his head.
..."One of the (native) elders told him that when he was a boy his grandfather came to him and told him he had two wolves fighting inside him. One was grey, the other black. The grey one wanted his grandfather to be courageous, and patient, and kind. The other, the black one, wanted his grandfather to be fearful and cruel. This upset the boy, and he thought about it for a few days and returned to his grandfather. He asked, 'Grandfather, which of the wolves will win?' Do you know what his grandfather said?" Gamache shook his head. There was such a look of sadness on the Chief Inspector's face, it almost broke the abbot's heart. "The one I feed.”
― Louise Penny, quote from The Beautiful Mystery
“Like the rest of the Québécois? Like Beauvoir himself? Did they curse the Church? Câlice! Tabernac! Hostie! The Québécois had turned religious words into dirty words.”
― Louise Penny, quote from The Beautiful Mystery
“precision and clarity where the police”
― Louise Penny, quote from The Beautiful Mystery
“Beauvoir was so close to Frère Raymond”
― Louise Penny, quote from The Beautiful Mystery
“Gamache in anger. “He knew that’s”
― Louise Penny, quote from The Beautiful Mystery
“believe the copy of this e-book you are reading”
― Louise Penny, quote from The Beautiful Mystery
Louise Penny
Born place: in Toronto, Canada
Born date July 1, 1958
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“If I am not persistent with my desire to think about other things, and consciously initiate new circuits of thought, then those uninvited loops can generate new strength and begin monopolizing my mind again. To counter their activities, I keep a handy list of three things available for me to turn my consciousness toward when I am in a state of need: 1) I remember something I find fascinating that I would like to ponder more deeply, 2) I think about something that brings me terrific joy, or 3) I think about something I would like to do.”
― Jill Bolte Taylor, quote from My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist's Personal Journey
“Beautiful girls who love too much, as Lindsay appeared to have done, often meet unpleasant ends.”
― Meg Cabot, quote from Size 14 Is Not Fat Either
“Ich erinnere mich noch an Ihre Worte: „Die Welt ist ein Schlachthaus und ein Bordell.“ Damals schien mir das übertrieben, aber es ist bittere Wahrheit. Man hält Sie für einen Mystiker, aber in Wirklichkeit sind Sie durch und durch Realist. Wie dem auch sei, alles wird uns aufgezwungen, selbst die Hoffnung.”
― Isaac Bashevis Singer, quote from Shosha
“The Sultan tapped his tented fingers, staring into the distance. Suddenly, he lunged toward me, took hold of my wrist, and pulled me roughly down to sit on the cushion beside him. “This . . . mermaid,” he said through clenched teeth, leaning in so close to me that I could smell the mint on his breath. “The one who sang to the king at night.” His voice was fierce, but quiet. I couldn’t tell if anyone but me could hear. “How . . .” he began. “How did she think of the king . . . in her heart?”
I glanced quickly up at his face and saw there a look that took me by surprise. An oddly soft, vulnerable, hurting look. The look of a man who might cry out in his sleep at night, like a child. But then the stony mask slid back.
“Did she despise him,” the Sultan asked, “for making her sing for her life each night? Did she only pretend affection to save her own skin? Did she . . . loathe him for what he had done before, to his other wives? For his . . . sins?”
“No, my lord,” I said softly. “She loved him.”
“Do you swear it?” He gripped my wrist harder, until it hurt.
“Yes, my lord. She told me—” I stopped, corrected myself. “She told the mermaid with the broken fin. She said the king—the merman king, my lord—she said that he had a deep hurting inside him. She said that she wanted to soothe him. And when the mermaid with the broken fin . . . questioned how the queen could love him—because of the things you just said, my lord—the queen said, ‘I’m not ashamed of loving him. There’s nothing wrong with loving someone. It’s hating—that’s what’s wrong.”
― Susan Fletcher, quote from Shadow Spinner
“Something in her had been broken... The ones who were killed were not the only ones who'd been lost.”
― Daniel Mendelsohn, quote from The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million
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The Prize: The Epic...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.
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