Quotes from The Brutal Telling

“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.”
― Louise Penny, quote from The Brutal Telling

“The leaves had fallen from the trees and lay crisp and crackling beneath his feet. Picking one up he marveled, not for the first time, at the perfection of nature where leaves were most beautiful at the very end of their lives.”
― Louise Penny, quote from The Brutal Telling

“What are you afraid of?
I'm afraid of not recognizing Paradise.”
― Louise Penny, quote from The Brutal Telling

“What haunted people even, perhaps especially, on their deathbed? What chased them, tortured them and brought some of them to their knees? And [he] thought he had the answer. Regret. Regret for things said, things done, and things not done. Regret for the people they might have been. And failed to be. ”
― Louise Penny, quote from The Brutal Telling

“But there was no hiding from Conscience. Not in new homes and new cars. In travel. In meditation or frantic activity. In children, in good works. On tiptoes or bended knee. In a big career. Or a small cabin. It would find you. The past always did. Which was why... it was vital to be aware of actions in the present. Because the present became the past, and the past grew. And got up, and followed you. And found you... Who wouldn't be afraid of this?”
― Louise Penny, quote from The Brutal Telling

“Better to accept the wretched truth than struggle, twisting to make a wish a reality.”
― Louise Penny, quote from The Brutal Telling

“I just sit where I'm put, composed
of stone and wishful thinking:
that the deity who kills for pleasure
will also heal,
that in the midst of your nightmare,
the final one, a kind lion
will come with bandages in her mouth
and the soft body of a woman,
and lick you clean of fever,
and pick your soul up gently by the nape of the neck
and caress you into darkness and paradise.”
― Louise Penny, quote from The Brutal Telling

“People wandered in for books and conversation. They brought their stories to her, some bound, and some known by heart. She recognized some of the stories as real, and some as fiction. But she honored them all, though she didn't buy every one.”
― Louise Penny, quote from The Brutal Telling

“...it was vital to be aware of actions in the present. Because the present became the past, and the past grew. And got up, and followed you.”
― Louise Penny, quote from The Brutal Telling

“Not a spoon clinked against a mug, not a creamer was popped, peeled and opened, not a breath. It was as though something else had joined them then. As though silence had taken a seat.”
― Louise Penny, quote from The Brutal Telling

“Her voice was slightly accented but her French was perfect. Someone who'd not just learned the language but loved it. And it showed with every syllable. Gamache knew it was impossible to split language from culture. That without one the other withered. To love the language was to respect the culture.”
― Louise Penny, quote from The Brutal Telling

“Funny how imperfections on the outside mean something splendid beneath.”
― Louise Penny, quote from The Brutal Telling

“Life was about to take her away from here. Fro the place where she'd become herself. This sold little village that never changed but helped its inhabitants to change. She's arrived straight from art college full of avant-garde ideas, wearing shades of gray and seeing the world in black and white. So sure of herself. But here, in the middle of nowhere, she'd discovered color. And nuance. She'd learned this from the villagers, who'd been generous enough to lend her their souls to paint. Not as perfect human beings, but as flawed, struggling men and women. Filled with fear and uncertainty and, in at least one case, martinis.”
― Louise Penny, quote from The Brutal Telling

“He had loads of colleagues, acquaintances, buddies. He was an emotional communist. Everyone counted equally, but none too much.”
― Louise Penny, quote from The Brutal Telling

“Most unhappiness comes from not being able to sit quietly in a room.”
― Louise Penny, quote from The Brutal Telling

“But odd as his family might be, they were nothing compared to this. In fact, that was one of the great comforts of his job. At least his family compared well to people who actually killed each other, rather than just thought about it.”
― Louise Penny, quote from The Brutal Telling

“He was an emotional communist. Everyone counted equally, but none too much.”
― Louise Penny, quote from The Brutal Telling

“She'd wanted to run an inn. To welcome people, to mother them. They had no children of their own, and she had a powerful need to nurture.”
― Louise Penny, quote from The Brutal Telling

“Like a first love, the place where peace is first found is never, ever forgotten.”
― Louise Penny, quote from The Brutal Telling

“It was said with humor, but the criticism wasn't lost on Gamache. He was fishing, and he knew it. So did Sommes. So did Esther. We're all fishermen, she'd said.”
― Louise Penny, quote from The Brutal Telling

“They stared ahead. Silent. Morin had never realized murderers were caught in silence. But they were.”
― Louise Penny, quote from The Brutal Telling

“Gamache watched the old poet. He knew what was looming behind the Mountain. What crushed all before it. The thing the Hermit most feared. The Mountain most feared.

Conscience.

...

Which is why, Gamache knew, it was vital to be aware of actions in the present. Because the present became the past, and the past grew. And got up, and followed you.

And found you ...

Who wouldn't be afraid of this?”
― Louise Penny, quote from The Brutal Telling

“The reason “belonging” was so potent, so attractive, so much a part of the human yearning, was that it also meant safety, and loyalty. If you were “one of us” you were protected.”
― Louise Penny, quote from The Brutal Telling

“Which was why, Gamache knew, it was vital to be aware of actions in the present. Because the present became the past, and the past grew. And got up, and followed you.”
― Louise Penny, quote from The Brutal Telling

“Now he had her full attention. Not only because she wanted to know what had happened, but because anyone who’d get up at two in the morning to smack a melon in the dark deserved attention. Perhaps even medical attention.”
― Louise Penny, quote from The Brutal Telling

“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.”
― Louise Penny, quote from The Brutal Telling

“Olivier looked at him blankly. But the Chief Inspector had seen that look before. It was, in fact, almost impossible to look blank. Unless the person wanted to. A blank face to the Chief Inspector meant a frantic mind.”
― Louise Penny, quote from The Brutal Telling

“In the kitchen Gamache’s German shepherd, Henri, sat up in his bed and cocked his head. He had huge oversized ears which made Gamache think he wasn’t purebred but a cross between a shepherd and a satellite dish.”
― Louise Penny, quote from The Brutal Telling

“Clara Morrow had painted Ruth as the elderly, forgotten Virgin Mary. Angry, demented, the Ruth in the portrait was full of despair, of bitterness. Of a life left behind, of opportunities squandered, of loss and betrayals real and imagined and created and caused. She clutched at a rough blue shawl with emaciated hands. The shawl had slipped off one bony shoulder and the skin was sagging, like something nailed up and empty.
“And yet the portrait was radiant, filling the room from one tiny point of light. In her eyes. Embittered, mad Ruth stared into the distance, at something very far off, approaching. More imagined than real.
Hope.
Clara had captured the moment despair turned to hope. The moment life began. She’d somehow captured Grace.”
― Louise Penny, quote from The Brutal Telling

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Popular quotes

“The ICC [Interstate Commerce Commission] illustrates what might be called the natural history of government intervention. A real or fancied evil leads to demands to do something about it. A political coalition forms consisting of sincere, high-minded reformers and equally sincere interested parties. The incompatible objectives of the members of the coalition (e.g., low prices to consumers and high prices to producers) are glossed over by fine rhetoric about “the public interest,” “fair competition,” and the like. The coalition succeeds in getting Congress (or a state legislature) to pass a law. The preamble to the law pays lip service to the rhetoric and the body of the law grants power to government officials to “do something.” The high-minded reformers experience a glow of triumph and turn their attention to new causes. The interested parties go to work to make sure that the power is used for their benefit. They generally succeed. Success breeds its problems, which are met by broadening the scope of intervention. Bureaucracy takes its toll so that even the initial special interests no longer benefit. In the end the effects are precisely the opposite of the objectives of the reformers and generally do not even achieve the objectives of the special interests. Yet the activity is so firmly established and so many vested interests are connected with it that repeal of the initial legislation is nearly inconceivable. Instead, new government legislation is called for to cope with the problems produced by the earlier legislation and a new cycle begins.”
― Milton Friedman, quote from Free to Choose: A Personal Statement

“Can you understand what the rats are saying?"
"No. But I can kill them."
"Why?"
"Because they are never satisfied. They are like bad politicians and imperialists and rich people."
"How?"
"They eat up property. They eat up everything in sight. And one day when they are very hungry they will eat us up.”
― Ben Okri, quote from The Famished Road

“Seemed our house stirred up troubles enough to keep a radio soap show in daily episodes forever.”
― Allan Gurganus, quote from Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All

“You convinced yourselves we're just a bunch of regular lads who got a bad break in life. Anything else would have cracked your dream open and made you face reality. Illusion is easy. Illusion is the loser's way out. Your way. ”
― Peter F. Hamilton, quote from The Reality Dysfunction

“Gerald, through an act of silent will, imposed on his father the pressing obligation to perform his final acts of expiation for abandoning the family. You will not know, the child silently said, what these acts are until you have performed them all. And after you have performed them you will not understand that they were expiatory any more than you have understood all the other expiation that has kept you in such prolonged humiliation. Then, when these final acts are complete, you will stop trying to die because of me.”
― William Kennedy, quote from Ironweed

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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.