All the Devils Are Here (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #16)

by Louise Penny

With patience comes choice, and with choice comes power.”

What’re you going to focus on? What’s unfair, or all the wonderful things that happen? Both are true, both are real. Both need to be accepted. But which carries more weight with you?”

Don’t believe everything you think.

“Fluctuat nec mergitur.”

“‘Beaten by the waves,’” said the maître d’. “‘But never sinks.’”

A snake sheds its skin, but nothing else changes. It’s still exactly the same creature.”

The funny thing about Hell is that we assume it’s obvious. Fire, brimstone. We’ll be plunged into it by some horrific event in our lives. But the truth is, Hell can be as subtle as Heaven.” He looked around. “Sometimes we don’t recognize we’ve wandered into Hell until it’s too late.”

If this was the right thing to do, why did it feel so wrong? But no, it didn’t feel wrong. It felt wretched. Horrific. A nightmare. But sometimes “right” felt like that.

C. S. Lewis wrote that we can create situations in which we are happy, but we cannot create joy. It just happens.