Your brain is your weapon.
The funny thing about murder is that the act is often committed decades before the actual action. Something happens, and it leads, inexorably, to death many years later. A bad seed is planted. It’s like those old horror films from the Hammer studios, of the monster, not running, never running, but walking without pause, without thought or mercy, toward its victim. Murder is often like that. It starts way far off.
It was funny how obsessed people believed others equally obsessed, or even interested.
Our lives are like a house. Some people are allowed on the lawn, some onto the porch, some get into the vestibule or kitchen. The better friends are invited deeper into our home, into our living room.
You weren’t lost. You were exploring. There’s a difference.
The world turned upside down,′ Beauvoir continued. ‘It was at once more beautiful and more frightening than you’d been led to believe. And suddenly you didn’t know what to do. Who to trust. Where to turn. It’s terrifying. Being lost is so much worse than being on the wrong road. That’s why people stay on it for so long.
There was nothing like the pain of the present to cure the pain of the past.
Look at Nuremberg. Why did the Holocaust happen?” “Because deluded, power-crazy leaders needed a common enemy,” said Clara. “No,” said Myrna. “It happened because no one stopped them. Not enough people stood up soon enough.
After all, it’s how the light gets in.
In the kingdom of the blind, Amelia recited to herself as she trudged along – – the one-eyed man is king, Gamache read.
If you pretend to know you aren’t going to actually learn.
When I miss things or let them pass they gather in a heap then rise up and take a life. So, I try not to.
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.
A coy smile could capture him, but it was finally a hearty laugh that had freed him.
Four days. And she had two gay sons, a large black mother, a demented poet for a friend and was considering getting a duck. It was not what she’d expected from this visit.
Sometimes the only way up is down. Sometimes the only way forward is to back up.
Memories can kill, Yvette. The past can reach right up and grab you and drag you to a place you shouldn’t be. Like a burning building.
The glass was old. Leaded. Imperfect. And it was the imperfections that were creating the play of light.
When does a bush that burns become a Burning Bush?
People instinctively let down their guard when they saw a limp, an illness, a flaw in someone else. Not out of compassion but because it made them feel superior. Stronger. Those people, Gamache knew, did not always last long. It was not a useful instinct.