A Trick of the Light (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #7)

by Louise Penny

It wasn’t enough that they were English and had a prayer stick, but now they’d lapsed into pig latin. It was no wonder there were so many murders here.

“AA?” demanded Ruth. “Bunch of devil worshipers. It’s a cult. Mind control. Demons. Turning people away from the natural path.” “Of being alcoholics?”

“She asked André Castonguay how big his dick was.” “I did not. I asked how big a dick he was. There’s a difference.”

“What is this? A cult?” “Praying doesn’t make something a cult,” whispered the Chief. “Did you get a load of all the smiling and shaking hands? What was that? You can’t tell me these people aren’t into mind-control.”

“Happiness isn’t a cult either,” whispered Gamache, but Beauvoir looked like he didn’t believe it.

“No wonder people drink. This’s about as much fun as drowning.”

She’d made so many bad choices she no longer knew how to make good ones.”

Not because I believe it’s true, but so that I have a choice of what to believe, and it doesn’t always have to be the worst.”

You don’t necessarily want to kill, but you sure as hell don’t want to miss.

“Like Humpty Dumpty, some people are just too damaged to heal.”

“So you looked up ‘chiaroscuro’ this morning. Is that what you do when I’m not around?” “That and Free Cell. And porn, of course, but we only do that on your computer.”