A journalist also needs to be disciplined, and so do I. I am, essentially, lazy. Without discipline I’d be just a mass of gummy bears on the sofa instead of on book tour with my eighth novel.
But, like peace, comfort didn’t come from hiding away or running away. Comfort first demanded courage.
It’s a shame that creativity and sloth look exactly the same.
What are you afraid of? I’m afraid of not recognizing Paradise.
Better to accept the wretched truth than struggle, twisting to make a wish a reality.
I was tired of seeing the Graces always depicted as beautiful young things. I think wisdom comes with age and life and pain. And knowing what matters.
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.
The women in the room chatted about love, about childhood, about losing parents, about Mr. Spock, about good books they’d read. They mothered each other.
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.
Few things are better in the world than a room full of librarians. I consider them literary heroes. The keepers and defenders of the written word.
In winter the very ground seemed to reach up and grab the elderly, yanking them to earth as though hungry for them.
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.
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.
Love wants the best for others. Attachment takes hostages.
Three Pines is a state of mind. When we choose tolerance over hate. Kindness over cruelty. Goodness over bullying. When we choose to be hopeful, not cynical. Then we live in Three Pines.
In my teens my drug of choice was acceptance, in my twenties it was approval, in my thirties it was love, in my forties it was Scotch. That lasted a while,’ she admitted. ‘Now all I really crave is a good bowel movement.
Ring the bells that still can ring, Forget your perfect offering, There’s a crack in everything, That’s how the light gets in.
Loss was like that, Gamache knew. You didn’t just lose a loved one. You lost your heart, your memories, your laughter, your brain and it even took your bones. Eventually it all came back, but different. Rearranged.
Most of us are great with change, as long as it was our idea.
Grief took a terrible toll. It was paid at every birthday, every holiday, each Christmas. It was paid when glimpsing the familiar handwriting, or a hat, or a balled-up sock. Or hearing a creak that could have been, should have been, a footstep. Grief took its toll each morning, each evening, every noon hour as those who were left behind struggled forward.