A Fatal Grace (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #2)

by Louise Penny

in each of my works I try to leave a little space, a kind of crack.’

‘Ring the bells that still can ring, Forget your perfect offering, There’s a crack in everything, That’s how the light gets in.’

Gamache looked at her silently, his deep brown eyes calm and peaceful. She knew then all the horrible things he’d seen with those eyes. Murdered and mutilated women, children, husbands, wives. He saw violent death every day. She looked down at his hands, large and expressive, and knew then all the horrible things they’d had to do. Handle the bodies of people dead before their time. Fight for his own life and others. And perhaps the worst of all, those fingers had formed loose fists and knocked on the doors of loved ones. To break the news. To break their hearts.

‘When someone stabs you it’s not your fault that you feel pain.’

‘Eventually, for better or worse, our childhood fantasies disappear or are replaced by others.

Too much light.’

We become our beliefs,

‘We live in a world of guided missiles and misguided men,’ said Myrna. ‘Dr Martin Luther King, Junior.’

‘Your beliefs become your thoughts Your thoughts become your words Your words become your actions Your actions become your destiny. Mahatma Gandhi,’ he said. ‘There’s more, but I can’t remember it all.’

he was surprised to see it looked like a regular home. But then, that was the real horror of these places and these people.

They looked normal. They sucked you in, then slowly the door swung shut and you were trapped. With a monster. Within a monster.

Memories can kill,

The past can reach right up and grab you and drag you to a place you shouldn’t be.

Don’t mistake dramatics for a conscience.

‘Perhaps I’m attracted to the damned.’ Gamache smiled. ‘Maybe that’s why I hunt killers, like Cain.

‘I’m a happy man, madame. I’m very lucky and I know it.’ ‘C’est ça.’ She nodded. ‘It’s the knowing of it.

I had to go to Hell to find happiness.’

When you see the worst you appreciate the best.’

‘Every murder you’ve been on is about belief. What the murderer believes, what you believe.’

And, when he thinks, good easy man, full surely His greatness is a-ripening, nips his root, And then he falls, as I do. ‘And when he falls, he falls like Lucifer,’ said Gamache in a whisper.

‘Never to hope again.’

your doubts. They’re what make you a great man, not your certainties.’