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

by Louise Penny

Stephen put his hand on the boy’s arm and said, “Patience. Patience. With patience comes choice, and with choice comes power.”

His godfather nodded. “But it was compassionate to spare them. Life can be cruel, as you know. But it can also be kind. Filled with wonders. You need to remember that. You have your own choice to make, Armand. 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?” Stephen tapped the boy’s chest. “The terrible or the wonderful? The goodness or the cruelty? Your life will be decided by that choice.” “And patience?” asked Armand, and Stephen caught something he hadn’t noticed before. A hint of the mischievous.

At the age of eight something changed. A wall went up between him and his father. At first it had been a very subtle step back. Always a polite little boy, there was now a formality. A frigidity. A caution that grew into a coolness. That grew into a chasm.

Don’t believe everything you think. Chief Inspector Gamache wrote that on the board for the incoming cadets at the start of every year at the Sûreté academy, and it stayed there all year. At

But Dussault also knew that the angrier Gamache became, the more contained, the more polite he became. Putting iron straps around any violent emotion.

He gestured toward a poster of Copenhagen Harbor. Florence had become obsessed with the story that Copenhagen Harbor had once been the home of all mermaids. “I don’t even know where that is. Never been out of France. Why would I?” “Right. Why would you?” She

C. S. Lewis wrote that we can create situations in which we are happy, but we cannot create joy. It just happens. That moment I was surprised by complete and utter joy. A