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What people mistook for safety was in fact captivity.

Louise Penny

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Louise Penny
Age: 66
Born: 1958
Born: July 1
Author
Journalist
Novelist
Writer
City of Toronto
Mistook
Captivity
Safety
Fact
Facts
People

More quotes by Louise Penny

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Every decade of my life I attempted to write a novel. But I had nothing to say. I was far too self-absorbed, and now I realize I was writing for others, so that they'd applaud me, see my genius, tell me how wonderful I am, or be jealous of my success.
Louise Penny
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Life is choice. All day, everyday. Who we talk to, where we sit, what we say, how we say it. And our lives become defined by our choices. It's as simple and as complex as that. And as powerful. so when I'm observing that's what I'm watching for. The choices people make
Louise Penny
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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.
Louise Penny
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How much more courage it took to be kind than to be cruel.
Louise Penny
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A good journalist, as you know, is a great listener. And so's a good writer. And I got to listen to people for almost 20 years. That serves me well, I hope, when I try to understand how a character might be feeling, or how they might react.
Louise Penny
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Things are strongest where they're broken.
Louise Penny
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Or - perhaps - I should just worry about my own behavior and let others be who they are.
Louise Penny
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I went through a period in my life when I had no friends, when the phone never rang, when I thought I would die from loneliness. I know that the real blessing here isn't that I have a book published, but that I have so many people to thank.
Louise Penny
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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
Louise Penny
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No good ever comes from putting up walls. What people mistake for safety is in fact captivity. And few things thrive in captivity.
Louise Penny
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Now here's a good one: you're lying on your deathbed. You have one hour to live. Who is it, exactly, you have needed all these years to forgive?
Louise Penny
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Where there is love there is courage, where there is courage there is peace, where there is peace there is God. And when you have God, you have everything.
Louise Penny
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When someone stabs you it's not your fault that you feel pain.
Louise Penny
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The night is a strawberry.
Louise Penny
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Myrna could spend happy hours browsing bookcases. She felt if she could just get a good look at a person’s bookcase and their grocery cart, she’d pretty much know who they were.
Louise Penny
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I'm just like this. I have no talent for choosing my battles. Life seems, strangely, like a battle to me. The whole thing.
Louise Penny
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Her voice was slightly accented but her French was perfect. Someone who'd not just learned the language but loved it. And it showed with every syllable. Gamache knew it was impossible to split language from culture. That without one the other withered. To love the language was to respect the culture.
Louise Penny
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Better to accept the wretched truth than struggle, twisting to make a wish a reality.
Louise Penny
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The four sayings that lead to wisdom: I was wrong I'm sorry I don't know I need help
Louise Penny
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What haunted people even, perhaps especially, on their deathbed? What chased them, tortured them and brought some of them to their knees? And [he] thought he had the answer. Regret. Regret for things said, things done, and things not done. Regret for the people they might have been. And failed to be.
Louise Penny