Quotes from The Long Way Home

“After spending most of her life scanning the horizon for slights and threats, genuine and imagined, she knew the real threat to her happiness came not from the dot in the distance, but from looking for it. Expecting it. Waiting for it. And in some cases, creating it. Her father had jokingly accused her of living in the wreckage of her future. Until one day she’d looked deep into his eyes and saw he wasn’t joking. He was warning her.”
― Louise Penny, quote from The Long Way Home

“Fear lives in the head. And courage lives in the heart. The job is to get from one to the other.” “And between the two is the lump in the throat,”
― Louise Penny, quote from The Long Way Home

“I’ll pray that you grow up a brave man in a brave country. I will pray you find a way to be useful.”
― Louise Penny, quote from The Long Way Home

“You too?" She asked Ruth. "How do your poems start out?"

"They start as a lump in the throat," she said.”
― Louise Penny, quote from The Long Way Home

“Turmoil shook loose all sorts of unpleasant truths. But it took peace to examine them.”
― Louise Penny, quote from The Long Way Home

“What’s the use of healing, if the life that’s saved is callow and selfish and ruled by fear? There’s a difference between being in sanctuary and being in hiding.”
― Louise Penny, quote from The Long Way Home

“[Being jealous] is like drinking acid, and expecting the other person to die.”
― Louise Penny, quote from The Long Way Home

“Not everyone’s an explorer, and not every explorer makes it back alive. That’s why it takes so much courage.”
― Louise Penny, quote from The Long Way Home

“If love was compass enough, said Armand quietly, there would be no missing children.”
― Louise Penny, quote from The Long Way Home

“Annie laughed. She had a face, a body, made not for a Paris runway but for good meals and books by the fire and laughter. She was constructed from, and for, happiness. But it had taken Annie Gamache a long while to find it. To trust it.”
― Louise Penny, quote from The Long Way Home

“Her voice was flat, in a way Myrna recognized from years of listening to people trying to rein in their emotions. To squash them down, flatten, them, and with them their words and their voices. Desperately trying to make the horrific sound mundane.”
― Louise Penny, quote from The Long Way Home

“Clara didn't carry a grudge. They were too heavy and she had too far to go.”
― Louise Penny, quote from The Long Way Home

“I’ll pray that you grow up a brave man in a brave country,” Clara said. “I will pray you find a way to be useful,” Gamache completed the quote. Reine-Marie dropped her eyes to her hands and saw the paper napkin twisted and shredded there. Clara nodded slowly. “I think you might be right. Peter went to Paris not to find a new artistic voice. It was simpler than that. He wanted to find a way to be useful.”
― Louise Penny, quote from The Long Way Home

“Fear lives in the head. And courage lives in the heart. The job is to get from one to the other.”
― Louise Penny, quote from The Long Way Home

“How do your poems start out?” “They start as a lump in the throat,” she said. “Isn’t that normally just a cocktail olive lodged there?” Olivier asked. “Once,” Ruth admitted. “Wrote quite a good poem before I coughed it up.”
― Louise Penny, quote from The Long Way Home

“believe in using your head. But not in spending too much time in there. Fear lives in the head. And courage lives in the heart. The job is to get from one to the other.”
― Louise Penny, quote from The Long Way Home

“Peter's a lucky man except in one respect, he doesn't seem to know how lucky he is.”
― Louise Penny, quote from The Long Way Home

“Every morning he went for a walk with his wife, Reine-Marie, and their German shepherd Henri. Tossing the tennis ball ahead of them, they ended up chasing it down themselves when Henri became distracted by a fluttering leaf, or a black fly, or the voices in his head. The dog would race after the ball, then stop and stare into thin air, moving his gigantic satellite ears this way and that. Honing in on some message. Not tense, but quizzical. It was, Gamache recognized, the way most people listened when they heard on the wind the wisps of a particularly beloved piece of music. Or a familiar voice from far away.”
― Louise Penny, quote from The Long Way Home

“Turmoil shook loose all sorts of unpleasant truths. But it took peace to examine them.”
― Louise Penny, quote from The Long Way Home

“There is a balm in Gilead,” she read from the back, “to make the wounded whole—” “There’s power enough in Heaven / To cure a sin-sick soul.”
― Louise Penny, quote from The Long Way Home

“Peter always had a ‘best before’ date stamped on his forehead,” said Ruth. “People who live in their heads do. They start out well enough, but eventually they run out of ideas. And if there’s no imagination, no inspiration to fall back on? Then what?”
― Louise Penny, quote from The Long Way Home

“Armand Gamache had seen the worst. But he’d also seen the best. Often in the same person.”
― Louise Penny, quote from The Long Way Home

“Most people want to be led. But suppose they choose the wrong leader? They end up with the Donner party.”
― Louise Penny, quote from The Long Way Home

“In a life filled with great good fortune of health, of creativity, of friends, living in safety and privilege with the loving partner. There was just one bit of misfortune in his life and that was that Peter Morrow seemed to have no idea how very fortunate he was.”
― Louise Penny, quote from The Long Way Home

“Dr. Vincent Gilbert lived in the heart of the forest. Away from human conflict, but also away from human contact. It was a compromise he was more than happy to make.”
― Louise Penny, quote from The Long Way Home

“He loved Clara. I miss a lot in life,” said Gilbert. “But I have a nose for love.” “Like a truffle pig,” said Beauvoir, then regretted it when he saw the asshole saint’s reaction. Then, unexpectedly, Gilbert smiled. “Exactly. I can smell it. Love has an aroma all its own, you know.” Beauvoir looked at Gilbert, amazed by what he’d just heard. Maybe, he thought, this man was— “Smells like compost,” said Gilbert. —an asshole after all.”
― Louise Penny, quote from The Long Way Home

“An unsuspected yearning uncovered, discovered. For a simpler time and a simpler life. Before Internet, and climate change, and terrorism. When neighbors worked together, and separation was not a topic or an issue or wise.”
― Louise Penny, quote from The Long Way Home

“This was the great benefit of seeing worse. Fewer things worried him now.”
― Louise Penny, quote from The Long Way Home

“A coy smile could capture him, but it was finally a hearty laugh that had freed him.”
― Louise Penny, quote from The Long Way Home

“Sometimes the only way up is down. Sometimes the only way forward is to back up.”
― Louise Penny, quote from The Long Way Home

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Popular quotes

“Why are we sneaking out in the night?” Jack repeated.
“I already explained,” Sam snapped. “If you don’t listen—”
Taylor jumped in to say, “Because otherwise Astrid would find some way to stop him.” She mimicked Astrid’s voice, injecting it with steel and a tense, condescending tone. “Sam. I am the smartest, hottest girl in the world. So do what I tell you. Good boy. Down, boy. Down!”
Sam remained silent, walking steadily just a few feet ahead.
Taylor continued, “Oh, Sam, if only you could be as smart plus as totally goody-goody as I am. If only you could realize that you will never be good enough to have me, me, wonderful me, Astrid the Blond Genius.”
“Sam, can I shoot her now?” Dekka asked. “Or is it too soon?”
“Wait until we’re over the ridge,” Sam said. “It’ll muffle the sound.”
“Sorry, Dekka,” Taylor said. “I know you don’t like talking about boy-girl things.”
“Taylor,” Sam warned.
“Yes, Sam?”
“You might want to think about how hard it would be to walk if someone were to turn off gravity under your feet every now and then.”
“I wonder who would do that?” Dekka said.
Suddenly Taylor fell flat on her face.
“You tripped me!” Taylor said, more shocked than angry.
“Me?” Dekka spread her hands in a completely unconvincing gesture of innocence. “Hey, I’m all the way over here.”
“I’m just saying: you can see where that could make a long walk just a lot longer,” Sam said.
“You guys are so not fun,” Taylor grumped. She bounced instantaneously to just behind Sam. She grabbed his butt, he yelled, “Hey!” and she bounced away innocently.
“To answer your question, Jack,” Sam said, “we are sneaking out at night so that everyone doesn’t know we’re gone and why. They’ll figure it out soon enough, but Edilio will have to have more of his guys on the streets if I’m not there playing the big, bad wolf. More stress for everyone.”
“Oh,” Jack said.
“The big, bad wolf,” Taylor said. She laughed. “So, when you play that fantasy in your head is Astrid Little Red Riding Hood or one of the Three Little Pigs?”
“Dekka,” Sam said.
“Hah! Too slow!”
― Michael Grant, quote from Plague

“I saved a man's life once," said Granny. "Special medicine, twice a day. Boiled water with a bit of berry juice in it. Told him I'd bought it from the dwarves. That's the biggest part of doct'rin, really. Most people'll get over most things if they put their minds to it, you just have to give them an interest.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Equal Rites

“Do you listen to the wolves, Seoman?” Jiriki asked. “It’s hard n-not to.” “They sing such fierce songs.” The Sitha shook his head. “They are like your mortal kind. They sing of where they have been, and what they have seen and scented. They tell each other where the elk are running, and who has taken whom to mate, but mostly they are merely crying ‘I am! Here I am!’ ”
― Tad Williams, quote from The Dragonbone Chair

“The purpose of art is to provide what life does not.”
― Tom Robbins, quote from Another Roadside Attraction

“Vlad's heart sank into his stomach, then squeezed its way down his leg and popped out of the hole in his shoe, where it struck the floor and broke.”
― Heather Brewer, quote from Eighth Grade Bites

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