Inspectors Quotes

There are no easy answers, there's only living through the questions.

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

We should do away with the absolutely specious notion that everybody has to earn a living. It is a fact today that one in ten thousand of us can make a technological breakthrough capable of supporting all the rest. The youth of today are absolutely right in recognizing this nonsense of earning a living. We keep inventing jobs because of this false idea that everybody has to be employed at some kind of drudgery because, according to Malthusian Darwinian theory he must justify his right to exist. So we have inspectors of inspectors and people making instruments for inspectors to inspect inspectors. The true business of people should be to go back to school and think about whatever it was they were thinking about before somebody came along and told them they had to earn a living.

The press is a gang of cruel faggots. Journalism is not a profession or a trade. It is a cheap catch-all for fuckoffs and misfits—a false doorway to the backside of life, a filthy piss-ridden little hole nailed off by the building inspector, but just deep enough for a wino to curl up from the sidewalk and masturbate like a chimp in a zoo-cage.

I was tired of seeing the Graces always depicted as beautiful young things. I think wisdom comes with age and life and pain. And knowing what matters.

By George!" cried the inspector. "How did you ever see that?" Because I looked for it.

But you want murderous feelings? Hang around librarians," confided Gamache. "All that silence. Gives them ideas.

The man had a smooth voice, like velvet. “I’m Detective Inspector Me. Unusual name, I know. My family were incredibly narcissistic. I’m lucky I escaped with any degree of humility at all, to be honest, but then I’ve always managed to exceed expectations. You are Kenny Dunne, are you not?” “I am.” “Just a few questions for you, Mr Dunne. Or Kenny. Can I call you Kenny? I feel we’ve become friends these past few seconds. Can I call you Kenny?” “Sure,” Kenny said, slightly baffled. “Thank you. Thank you very much. It’s important you feel comfortable around me, Kenny. It’s important we build up a level of trust. That way I’ll catch you completely unprepared when I suddenly accuse you of murder.

There are four things that lead to wisdom. You ready for them?' She nodded, wondering when the police work would begin. "They are four sentences we learn to say, and mean." Gamache held up his hand as a fist and raised a finger with each point. "I don't know. I need help. I'm sorry. I was wrong'.

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

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.

We're all blessed and we're all blighted, Chief Inspector," said Finney. "Everyday each of us does our sums. The question is, what do we count?

Life is change. If you aren't growing and evolving, you're standing still, and the rest of the world is surging ahead.

I think many people love their problems. Gives them all sorts of excuses for not growing up and getting on with life.

I've been treating you with courtesy and respect because that's the way I choose to treat everyone. But never, ever mistake kindness with weakness.

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.

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

It’s all about the company you keep, isn’t it, Chief Inspector? Now Mr Trenton, who I know wouldn’t hurt a fly, has certain…preferences, if you know what I mean.’ He gave Merlin a meaningful look. ‘I don’t want to get anyone into trouble, of course.

We don't live alone. We are members of one body. We are responsible for each other. And I tell you that the time will soon come when if men will not learn that lesson, then they will be taught it in fire and blood and anguish. Good night.

Things are strongest where they're broken.

He mixed his sacred medicines and smudged. Afterward, he sat there for a moment to allow the smoke to come into his body and spirit. This one act connected him, even if briefly, to himself and to what he believed was the spirit world. In that space he offered thanks to those who had come before him and asked for help in this world, not just for himself but for anyone who might be struggling this morning.

Look, this is all very, very weird. Why are you focusing on rumours and urban legends? You haven’t even asked me any normal questions.” “Normal questions? Like what?” “Like, I don’t know, like if Lynch had any enemies.” “Did Lynch have any enemies?” “Well, not that I know of, no.” “Then there really was no point in me asking that, was there? Unless you wanted to distract me. You didn’t want to distract me, did you, Kenny?” “No, that’s not—” “Are you playing a game with me, Kenny?” “I don’t know what you’re—” Inspector Me leaned forward. “Did you kill him?” “No!” “It’d be OK if you did.” Kenny recoiled, horrified. “How would that be OK?” “Well,” Me said, “maybe not

Once upon a time, powerful wizard, who wanted to destroy an entire kingdom, placed a magic potion in the well from which the inhabitants drank. Whoever drank that water would go mad. The following morning, the whole population drank from the well and they all went mad, apart from the king and his family, who had a well set aside for them alone, which the magician had not managed to poison. The king was worried and tried to control the population by issuing a series of edicts governing security and public health. The policemen and the inspectors, however, had also drunk the poisoned water, and they thought the king’s decisions were absurd and resolved to take notice of them. When the inhabitants of the kingdom heard these decrees, they became convinced that the king had gone mad and was now giving nonsensical orders. The marched on the castle and called for his abdication. In despair the king prepared to step down from the throne, but the queen stopped him, saying: ‘Let us go and drink from the communal well. Then we will be the same as them.’ And that was what they did: The king and queen drank the water of madness and immediately began talking nonsense. Their subjects repented at once; now that the king was displaying such ‘wisdom’, why not allow him to rule the country? The country continued to live in peace, although its inhabitants behaved very differently from those of its neighbors. And the king was able to govern until the end of his days.

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?

Who hurt you, once, so far beyond repair that you would meet each overture with curling lip? While we, who knew you well, your friends, (the focus of your scorn) could see your courage in the face of fear, your wit, and thoughtfulness, and will remember you with something close to love.

A weak man in a corner is more dangerous than a strong man. (Inspector Miller)

The inspector ate only two of my tiny sandwiches: the first because he hadn't expected it to taste so awful; the second, I think, because he'd thought surely the first must have been a mistake.

I often think we should have tattooed on the back of whatever hand we use to shoot or write, 'I might be wrong.

It is no use to blame the looking glass if your face is awry.

Let every man shovel out his own snow, and the whole city will be passable," said Gamache. Seeing Beauvoir's puzzled expression he added, "Emerson." "Lake and Palmer?" "Ralph and Waldo.

Don’t believe everything you think.

I love stories with a happy ending,” Inspector Me said.

Peter swept aside Yogi Tea and Harmony Herbal Blend, though he hesitated a second over the chamomile. .... But no. Violent death demanded Earl Grey.

Don't mistake dramatics for a conscience.

Ah, Sir, a novel is a mirror carried along a high road. At one moment it reflects to your vision the azure skies, at another the mire of the puddles at your feet. And the man who carries this mirror in his pack will be accused by you of being immoral! His mirror shews the mire, and you blame the mirror! Rather blame that high road upon which the puddle lies, still more the inspector of roads who allows the water to gather and the puddle to form.

He was somewhat of a loner by temperament--because though never wholly happy when alone, he was usually slightly more miserable when with other people.

The leaves had fallen from the trees and lay crisp and crackling beneath his feet. Picking one up he marveled, not for the first time, at the perfection of nature where leaves were most beautiful at the very end of their lives.

Life is change. If you aren't growing and evolving you're standing still, and the rest of the world is surging ahead. Most of these people are very immature. They lead "still" lives, waiting.

The man might have died in a fit; but then the jewels are missing," mused the Inspector, "Ha! I have a theory. These flashes come upon me at times... What do you think of this, Holmes? Sholto was, on his own confession, with his brother last night. The brother died in a fit, on which Sholto walked off the treasure! How's that?" "On which the dead man very considerately got up and locked the door on the inside," said Holmes.

The trouble with you, dear, is that you think an angel of the Lord as a creature with wings, whereas he is probably a scruffy little man with a bowler hat.

one of the sisters started shaving her legs and marrying tax inspectors, so she was no good.

What are you afraid of? I'm afraid of not recognizing Paradise.

Three Pines is a state of mind. When we choose tolerance over hate. Kindness over cruelty. Goodness over bullying. When we choose to be hopeful, not cynical. Then we live in Three Pines.

It's a blessing Madame Gamache and I had at our wedding. It was read at the end of the ceremony. Now you will feel no rain For each of you will be shelter for the other Now you will feel no cold For each of you will be warmth for the other Now there is no loneliness for you Now there is no more loneliness. Now you are two persons, but there is one life before you. Go now to your dwelling place To enter into the days of your togetherness. And may your days be good and long upon this earth. (Apache Blessing)

Joy doesn't ever leave, you know. It's always with you. And one day you'll find it again.

Fear lives in the head. And courage lives in the heart. The job is to get from one to the other.” “And between the two is the lump in the throat,

This world can be a trying place, Inspector. Sometimes you have to shed who you were to live who you are.

When the police arrived and found no lion, no broken wall, and no convicts, and the Head behaving like a lunatic, there was an inquiry into the whole thing. And in the inquiry all sorts of things about Experiment House came out, and about ten people got expelled. After that, the Head's friends saw that the Head was no use as a Head, so they got her made an Inspector to interfere with other Heads. And when they found she wasn't much good even at that, they got her into Parliament where she lived happily ever after.

No, I’m fine. And yes, I mean that sort of FINE,” said Reine-Marie, making reference to the title of one of Ruth’s poetry books, where FINE stood for Fucked up, Insecure, Neurotic, and Egotistical.

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.

Love wants the best for others. Attachment takes hostages.

What did falling in love do for you? Can you ever really explain it? It filled empty spaces I never knew were empty. It cured a loneliness I never knew I had. It gave me joy. And freedom. I think that was the most amazing part. I suddenly felt both embraced and freed at the same time.

They waited for life to happen to them. They waited for someone to save them. Or heal them. They did nothing for themselves.

What are you laughing at? You are laughing at yourself.

There's always time for one more pint. - Chief Inspector Morse

His left eyebrow crept higher and higher as I told him the strange bits like the glowing letters and serpent staff. "Well, Sadie," Inspector Williams said. "You've got quite an imagination." "I'm not lying, Inspector. And I think your eyebrow is trying to escape." He tried to look at his own eyebrows, then scowled.

It was the laughter of birthdays, of money found in an old pocket.

I can't imagine what possessed you to propose to me." "Well that will give you something to puzzle over any time you can't sleep.

Despite all claims to the contrary, we have not been called by God to be inspectors of others production or quality of 'fruit'.

The generals who had called Zia a mullah behind his back felt ashamed at having underestimated him: not only was he a mullah, he was a mullah whose understanding of religion didn't go beyond parroting what he had heard from the next mullah. A mullah without a beard, a mullah in a four-star general's uniform, a mullah with the instincts of a corrupt tax inspector.

One of the elders told him that when he was a boy his grandfather came to him one day and said he had two wolves fighting inside him. One was gray, the other black. The gray one wanted his grandfather to be courageous, and patient, and kind. The other, the black one, wanted his grandfather to be fearful and cruel. This upset the boy, and he thought about it for a few days then returned to his grandfather. He asked, 'Grandfather, which of the wolves will win?' The abbot smiled slightly and examined the Chief Inspector. 'Do you know what his grandfather said?' Gamache shook his head. . . . 'The one I feed,' said Dom Philippe.

How much more courage it took to be kind than to be cruel.

People who start a sentence with personally (and they're always women) ought to be thrown to the lions. It's a repulsive habit.

That was the danger. Not that betrayals happened, not that cruel things happened, but that they could outweigh all the good. That we could forget the good and only remember the bad.

Randall laid his hand on Stella's, but only to remove it from his sleeve. "My precious, you really must have some regard for my clothes," he said with gentle reproach. "Much as I love you, I cannot permit you to maul this particular coat.

Everybody does it!" Quirke burst out. "It's perks!" "Everybody?" said Vimes. He looked around at the squad. "Anyone else here take bribes?" His glare ran from face to face, causing most of the squad to do an immediate impression of the Floorboard and Ceiling Inspectors Synchronized Observation Team.

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.

My heart is a Latin American food stall and your love is a health inspector from Zurich.

Chief Inspector Gamache’s says there are ‘four sentences that lead to wisdom: I don’t know. I need help. I’m sorry. I was wrong.

Life is loss. But out of that, as the book stresses, comes freedom. If we can accept that nothing is permanent, and change is inevitable, if we can adapt, then we’re going to be happier people.

The night is a strawberry.

Better to accept the wretched truth than struggle, twisting to make a wish a reality.

Abby Hoffman said we should all eat what we kill. That would put an end to war.

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

I always drink at lunchtime. It helps my imagination.

Now, Mama, Papa, and sir," said Ramses, "please withdraw to the farthest corner and crouch down with your backs turned. It is as I feared; we will never break through by this method. The walls are eight feet thick. Fortunately I brought along a little nitroglycerin--" "Oh, good Gad," shrieked Inspector Cuff.

In winter the very ground seemed to reach up and grab the elderly, yanking them to earth as though hungry for them.

AND THE PERSON OUTSIDE TO WHOM YOU WERE speaking?” Inspector Hewitt asked. "Dogger," I said. "First name?" "Flavia," I said. I couldn't help myself.

Loss was like that, Gamache knew. You didn’t just lose a loved one. You lost your heart, your memories, your laughter, your brain and it even took your bones. Eventually it all came back, but different. Rearranged.

Most of us are great with change, as long it was our idea. But change imposed from the outside can send some people into a tailspin. - Myrna Landers

Most unhappiness comes from not being able to sit quietly in a room.

...while forgetting the past might condemn people to repeat it, remembering it too vividly condemned them to never leave.

Most people's first books are their best anyways. It's the one they wanted most to write.

There is always a road back. If we have the courage to look for it, and take it. I'm sorry. I was wrong. I don't know. I need help. These are the signposts. The cardinal directions.

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.

The truth of anything at all doesn't lie in someone's account of it. It lies in all the small facts of the time. An advertisement in a paper, the sale of a house, the price of a ring.

Her tragedy was that she always found men to save her. She never had to save herself. She never knew she could.

He tried to let her know it would be all right. Eventually. Life wouldn't always be this painful. The world wouldn't always be this brutal. Give it time, little one. Give it another chance. Come back.

In my teens my drug of choice was acceptance, in my twenties it was approval, in my thirties it was love, in my forties it was Scotch. That lasted a while,’ she admitted. ‘Now all I really crave is a good bowel movement.

Montalbano felt moved. This was real friendship, Sicilian friendship, the kind based on intuition, on what was left unsaid. With a true friend, one never needs to ask, because the other understands on his own accordingly.

She wasn’t afraid to be wrong. And that, the Chief knew, was a great strength.

I'm just like this. I have no talent for choosing my battles. Life seems, strangely, like a battle to me. The whole thing.

In my experience people who have been hurt either pass it on and become abusive themselves or they develop a great kindness.

Most of us are great with change, as long as it was our idea.

He focused on the inspector, instead, though she didn't want him watching her. But Rhys liked the way she looked, particularly when her expression suggested that she'd prefer to have a gun aimed at his head rather than sit across from him in a private railcar.

The fault lies with us, and only us. It’s not fate, not genetics, not bad luck, and it’s definitely not Mom and Dad. Ultimately it’s us and our choices. But, but’ – now her eyes shone and she almost vibrated with excitement – ‘the most powerful, spectacular thing is that the solution rests with us as well. We’re the only ones who can change our lives, turn them around. So all those years waiting for someone else to do it are wasted.

His theory is that life is loss,’ said Myrna after a moment. ‘Loss of parents, loss of loves, loss of jobs. So we have to find a higher meaning in our lives than these things and people. Otherwise we’ll lose ourselves.

The women in the room chatted about love, about childhood, about losing parents, about Mr. Spock, about good books they'd read. They mothered each other.

Gabri and I follow the way of Häagen Das. It’s occasionally a rocky road.

He knew at once it was a human bone, when he took it from the baby who was sitting on the floor chewing it.

Our lives are like a house. Some people are allowed on the lawn, some onto the porch, some get into the vestibule or the kitchen. The better friends are invited deeper into our home, into our living room.' 'And some are let into the bedroom,' said Gamache.

...it was vital to be aware of actions in the present. Because the present became the past, and the past grew. And got up, and followed you.

Evil is unspectacular and always human, and shares our bed and eats at our own table,

Is it true? Is it kind? Does it need to be said?

the four statements that lead to wisdom: I don’t know. I need help. I was wrong. I’m sorry.

She taught me that life goes on, and that I had a choice. To lament what I no longer had or be grateful for what remained.

The only thing money really buys?...Space. A bigger house, a bigger car, a larger hotel room. First-class plane tickets. But it doesn't even buy comfort. No one complains more than the rich and entitled. Comfort, security, ease. None of them come with money.

I've been desperately unhappy in my life." Her voice was quiet. "Have you, Chief Inspector?" It wasn't a response he could have predicted. He nodded. "I thought so. I think people who have had that experience and survived have a responsibility to help others. We can't let someone drown where we were saved.

It's an odd thing but when you tell someone the true facts of a mythical tale they are indignant not with the teller but with you. They don't want to have their ideas upset. It rouses some vague uneasiness in them, I think, and they resent it. So they reject it and refuse to think about it. If they were merely indifferent it would be natural and understandable. But it is much stronger than that, much more positive. They are annoyed. Very odd, isn't it.

They were not friends, Comdrade Pillai and Inspector Thomas Matthew, and they didn't trust each other. But they understood each other perfectly. They were both men whom childhood had abandoned without a trace. Men without curiosity. Without doubt. Both in their own way truly, terrifyingly, adult. They looked out into the world and never wondered how it worked, because they knew. They worked it. They were mechanics who serviced different parts of the same machine.

This is the most important thing I will ever say to you. The human mind is the ultimate testing device. You can take all the notes you want on the technical data, anything you forget you can look up again, but this must be engraved on your hearts in letters of fire. There is nothing, nothing, nothing, more important to me in the men and women I train than their absolute personal integrity. Whether you function as welders or inspectors, the laws of physics are implacable lie detectors. You may fool men. You will never fool metal. That’s all.

Three Pines wasn’t on any tourist map, being too far off any main or even secondary road. Like Narnia, it was generally found unexpectedly and with a degree of surprise that such an elderly village should have been hiding in this valley all along. Anyone fortunate enough to find it once usually found their way back.

You too?" She asked Ruth. "How do your poems start out?" "They start as a lump in the throat," she said.

The memory of the aged becomes clearer and clearer with time. It has no pity.

It’s so easy to get mired in the all too obvious cruelty of the world. It’s natural. But to really heal, we need to recognize the goodness too.

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.

Anything your father said. People he might have mentioned.” “Amos,” I blurted out, just to see his reaction. “He met a man named Amos.” Inspector Williams sighed. “Sadie, he couldn’t have done. Surely you know that. We spoke with Amos not one hour ago, on the phone from his home in New York.” “He isn’t in New York!” I insisted. “He’s right—” I glanced out the window and Amos was gone. Bloody typical.

He had never thought of himself as much of a praying man, but as he sat in the car in the growing darkness and the minutes passed, he knew what it was to pray. It was to will goodness out of evil, hope out of despair, life out of death. It was to will dreams into existence and spectres into reality. It was to will an end to anguish and a beginning to joy.

Anything to declare? the customs inspector said."Two pound of uncut heroin and a manual of pornographic art," Mark answered, looking about for Kity. All Americans are comedians, the inspector thought, as he passed Parker through. A government tourist hostess approached him."Are you Mr. Mark Parker?""Guilty.

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

They lead "still" lives, waiting. - Myrna Landers Waiting for what? - Armand Gamache Waiting for someone to save them. Expecting someone to save them or at least protect them from the big, bad world. The thing is no one else can save them because the problem is theirs and so is the solution. - Myrna

What people mistook for safety was in fact captivity.

I’ll pray that you grow up a brave man in a brave country. I will pray you find a way to be useful.

Like a first love, the place where peace is first found is never, ever forgotten.

Where other women ... were lovely, Annie Gamache was alive. Late, too late, Jean Guy Beauvoir had come to appreciate how very important it was, how very attractive it was, how very rare it was, to be fully alive.

Armand Gamache had always held unfashionable beliefs. He believed the light would banish the shadows. That kindness was more powerful than cruelty, and that goodness existed, even in the most desperate places. He believed that evil had its limits.

Journalism is not a profession or a trade. It is a cheap catch-all for fuckoffs and misfits—a false doorway to the backside of life, a filthy piss-ridden little hole nailed off by the building inspector, but just deep enough for a wino to curl up from the sidewalk and masturbate like a chimp in a zoo-cage.

The victim was white, in his early thirties, five feet eleven inches tall, ten and a half stone in weight, and in good physical condition. The last part always irritated Banks: how could a corpse ever be in good physical condition ?

Light is every bit as challenging as dark. We can discover a great deal about ourselves by looking at beauty.

Grant had dealt too long with the human intelligence to accept as truth someone's report of someone's report of what that someone remembered to have seen or been told.

It's a shame that creativity and sloth look exactly the same.

Consequences,” said Gamache. “We must always consider the consequences of our actions. Or inaction. It won’t necessarily change what we do, but we need to be aware of the effect.

You will find out who you are when the difficult moment comes.

But, like peace, comfort didn’t come from hiding away or running away. Comfort first demanded courage.

Turmoil shook loose all sorts of unpleasant truths. But it took peace to examine them.

[Being jealous] is like drinking acid, and expecting the other person to die.

Don’t believe everything you think,” said Gamache, before releasing the hand and opening the door. “Pema Chödrön. A Buddhist nun.

We are closer to the end of the world than to that minute that has just passed by, because that is lost forever.

It was one thing to forgive, it was another to climb back into the cage with that bear, even if it was wearing a tutu and smiling.

But there was no hiding from Conscience. Not in new homes and new cars. In travel. In meditation or frantic activity. In children, in good works. On tiptoes or bended knee. In a big career. Or a small cabin. It would find you. The past always did. Which was why... it was vital to be aware of actions in the present. Because the present became the past, and the past grew. And got up, and followed you. And found you... Who wouldn't be afraid of this?

She picked up her book and tried to read but it was heavy in her hands. She struggled to hold it, wanting to finish the story, wanting to know how it ended. She was afraid she'd run out of time before she ran out of book.

Beauvoir knew that the root of all evil wasn’t money. No, what created and drove evil was fear. Fear of not having enough money, enough food, enough land, enough power, enough security, enough love. Fear of not getting what you want, or losing what you have.

I just sit where I'm put, composed of stone and wishful thinking: that the deity who kills for pleasure will also heal, that in the midst of your nightmare, the final one, a kind lion will come with bandages in her mouth and the soft body of a woman, and lick you clean of fever, and pick your soul up gently by the nape of the neck and caress you into darkness and paradise.

To be silent. In hopes of not offending, in hopes of being accepted. But what happened to people who never spoke, never raised their voices? Kept everything inside? Gamache knew what happened. Everything they swallowed, every word, thought, feeling rattled around inside, hollowing the person out. And into that chasm they stuffed their words, their rage.

So much more comforting to see bad in others; gives us all sorts of excuses for our own bad behavior. But good? No, only really remarkable people see the good in others.

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

– ‘I think many people love their problems. Gives them all sorts of excuses for not growing up and getting on with life.

When someone shoots at us, we return fire,” said Jean-Guy. Now Jacques did nod. “But it’s equally important that when someone is kind to us, we return that as well,

It seemed to him a very Edinburgh thing. Welcoming, but not very.

But they both knew that words were weapons too, and when fashioned into a story their power was almost limitless.

I'm the kind of writer that people think other people are reading.

Secrets hidden at the heart of midnight are simply waiting to be dragged to the light, as, on some unlucky high noon, they always are. But secrets shrouded in the glare of candor are bound to defeat even the most determined and agile inspector for the light is always changing and proves that the eye cannot be trusted.

We see it when bullies are in charge. It becomes part of the culture of an institution, a family, an ethnic group, a country. It becomes not just acceptable, but expected. Applauded even.

That is why historians surprise me. They seem to have no talent for the likeliness of any situation. They see history like a peepshow; with two-dimensional figures against a distant background.

Be careful. You're making hurting a habit. Spreading it around won't lessen your pain, you know. Just the opposite.

He knew time could heal. But it could also do more damage. A forest fire, spread over time, would consume everything.

Gamache enjoyed going to churches for their music and the beauty of the language and the stillness. But he felt closer to God in his Volvo.

And now you see why lies matter. The actual fib might not matter, but what it shows us is that what you say can’t always be trusted. You can’t always be trusted.

A thousand people drowned in floods in China are news: a solitary child drowned in a pond is tragedy.

His eyes beheld beauty not in reality but in the printed word. Standing in the waiting-room, he realized that in his life he had accepted secondary experience -- the experience of reading someone else's thoughts -- over real life.

What do two women friends usually do when they see each other? We talked, we watched television, we listened to music Sometimes we did nothing at all. It was a pleasure just to know the other one was there.

But correct and right were two different things. As were facts and truth.

The whiskey kicked like a mugger.

It is sweet and right to die for your country…. an old and dangerous lie. It might be necessary, but it is never sweet and rarely right. It’s a tragedy.

Not everything needed to be brought into the light, he knew. Not every truth needed to be told.

Is this your first case?' This from the ugliest person Winter had ever seen. His face resembled five pounds of meat loaf molded by an arthritic potter.

My dear girl, don't talk nonsense to me! You're lazy, that's all that's wrong with you. Why don't you take up social work?

As a good rule of thumb, if you have to lie, you might be doing something wrong.

I see.” The nurse nodded. “How can I help you?” “I’m Inspector Mc—” Phineas halted, obviously having second thoughts about using his real name. “Man-boob,” Brynley finished for him. He stiffened. “What can I do for you, Inspector McMan-boob?” the nurse asked. He gritted his teeth. “It’s muscle.” “Inspector Muscle?” the nurse asked. “Yes. Exactly.” He gave Brynley a triumphant look. “And this is my assistant, Nurse—” “Doctor,” Brynley corrected him. “Doctor . . .” He glanced down at her chest. “A-cup.” “B-cup!” He arched a brow. “You’ll have to prove it.

Everything in our lives," she said quietly, "leads to everything else in our lives. So a moment in the present has a reference point, both in the past and in the future. I want you to know that you--as you are right now and as you ever will be--are fully enough for this moment . . .

The terror of falling asleep knowing that on waking she’d relive the loss, like Prometheus bound and tormented each day. Everything had changed. Even her grammar. Suddenly she lived in the past tense. And the singular.

Non. He said, ‘Be very, very careful who you let into your life. And learn to make peace with whatever happens. You can’t erase the past. It’s trapped in there with you. But you can make peace with it. If you don’t,’ he said, ‘you’ll be at perpetual war.

Do you know what I’ve learned, after three decades of death?” Gamache asked, leaning toward the agent and lowering his voice. Despite himself, the agent leaned forward. “I’ve learned how precious life is.

People wandered in for books and conversation. They brought their stories to her, some bound, and some known by heart. She recognized some of the stories as real, and some as fiction. But she honored them all, though she didn't buy every one.

Gamache was the best of them, the smartest and bravest and strongest because he was willing to go into his own head alone, and open all the doors there, and enter all the dark rooms. And make friends with what he found there.

She thought about how it was so simple with animals. They gave their hearts without question or fear. They had no expectations. They were so easy to love. If people could only be like that, no one would ever be hurt, she thought. No one would ever need to learn how to forgive.

Everyday for Lucy's entire dog life Jane had sliced a banana for breakfast and had miraculously dropped one of the perfect disks on to the floor where it sat for an instant before being gobbled up. Every morning Lucy's prayers were answered, confirming her belief that God was old and clumsy and smelt like roses and lived in the kitchen. But no more. Lucy knew her God was dead. And she now knew the miracle wasn't the banana, it was the hand that offered the banana.

As they trudged through the snow toward Clara's pretty little cottage, Ruth lost her footing. Haniya grabbed her before she fell. She held Ruth's hand for the rest of the way, and wondered if maybe the key was not in being held, but in holding.

After spending most of her life scanning the horizon for slights and threats, genuine and imagined, she knew the real threat to her happiness came not from the dot in the distance, but from looking for it. Expecting it. Waiting for it. And in some cases, creating it. Her father had jokingly accused her of living in the wreckage of her future. Until one day she’d looked deep into his eyes and saw he wasn’t joking. He was warning her.

Of all my children, you were always the hardest on yourself. You were always looking for the right way to behave, so concerned you might make a mistake. But, darling, there are no mistakes. There are only our wishes, our actions, and the consequences that follow both. There are only events, how we cope with them, and what we learn from the coping." "That's too easy," he said. "On the contrary. It's monumentally difficult.

Gamache knew people were like homes. Some were cheerful and bright, some gloomy. Some could look good on the outside but feel wretched on the interior. And some of the least attractive homes, from the outside, were kindly and warm inside. He also knew the first few rooms were for public consumption. It was only in going deeper that he'd find the reality. And finally, inevitably, there was the last room, the one we keep locked, and bolted and barred, even from ourselves. Especially from ourselves.

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.

Wait, Armand, he heard behind him but kept walking, ignoring the calls. Then he remembered what Emile had meant to him and still did. Did this one bad thing wipe everything else out? That was the danger. Not that betrayals happened, not that cruel things happened, but that they could outweigh all the good. That we could forget the good and only remember the bad. But not today. Gamache stopped.

While Henri had a huge heart, he had quite a modest brain. His head was taken up almost entirely by his ears. In fact, his head seemed simply a sort of mount for those ears. Fortunately Henri didn’t really need his head. He kept all the important things in his heart.

He impressed people. Unconsciously. Some people are like that. I'm not. There's something in those people that breaks down all the barriers, because they act completely the way they are, have nothing to hide, never shelter behind anything, are just themselves, straightforward.

Morse stared morosely at the blotting paper. "It's just not my sort of case, Lewis. I know it's not a very nice thing to say, but I just get on better when we've got a body - a body that died from unnatural causes. That's all I ask. And we haven't got a body.

I just sit where I'm put, composed of stone and wishful thinking: That the deity that kills for pleasure will also heal, That in the midst of your nightmare, the final one, a kind lion will pick your soul up gently by the nape of the neck, And caress you into darkness and paradise. ~ Ruth Zardo, poet and character in All The Devils Are Here

أتظن أن ذلك لن يؤثر عليك؟ أتعتقد أنك قوي بما يكفي لتتحمل أشياء من ذلك النوع؟ أتظن أن باستطاعتك اكتساب مناعة ضد ذلك بمرور السنين ويمكنك مشاهدة كل القذارة من بعيد كأنها ليست من شأنك، وتحاول الحفاظ على رباطة جأشك؟ لكن ليست هناك أي مسافة، وليست هناك أي مناعة، لا أحد قوي بما يكفي، يلازمك الاشمئزاز كأنه شبح شرير في ذهنك، لا يتركك بسلام حتى تعتقد أن القذارة هي الحياة نفسها وتنسى كيف يعيش الناس العاديون. هذه قضيتك؛ مثل ذلك الأمر، مثل شبح شرير تم إطلاقه ليعيث فسادًا في ذهنك ولا يتركك إلا مُقعدًا

Now, as Crowley would be the first to protest, most demons weren’t deep down evil. In the great cosmic game they felt they occupied the same position as tax inspectors—doing an unpopular job, maybe, but essential to the overall operation of the whole thing. If it came to that, some angels weren’t paragons of virtue; Crowley had met one or two who, when it came to righteously smiting the ungodly, smote a good deal harder than was strictly necessary. On the whole, everyone had a job to do, and just did it. And on the other hand, you got people like Ligur and Hastur, who took such a dark delight in unpleasantness you might even have mistaken them for human.

To the person who has anything to conceal—to the person who wants to lose his identity as one leaf among the leaves of a forest—to the person who asks no more than to pass by and be forgotten, there is one name above others which promises a haven of safety and oblivion. London. Where no one knows his neighbour. Where shops do not know their customers. Where physicians are suddenly called to unknown patients whom they never see again. Where you may lie dead in your house for months together unmissed and unnoticed till the gas-inspector comes to look at the meter. Where strangers are friendly and friends are casual. London, whose rather untidy and grubby bosom is the repository of so many odd secrets. Discreet, incurious and all-enfolding London.

The traffic warden looked up. "This your car?" "It is," said Skulduggery. The traffic warden nodded. "Very nice, very nice. But you can't park here, day or night." "I wasn't aware of that." "There's a sign right over there." "I didn't think it applied to me." "Why wouldn't it have applied to you?" Skulduggery tilted his head. "Because I'm special." "Don't care how special you think you are, you're parked in a no parking area and as such you're---" "We're here on official police business." The traffic warden narrowed his eyes. "You're Garda? I'm going to need to see some identification." "We're undercover," said Skulduggery. "This is a very important undercover operation which you are endangering just by talking to us." He opened his jacket. "Look, I have a gun. I am Detective Inspector Me. This is my partner, Detective Her." The traffic warden frowned. "Her?" "Me," said Stephanie. "Him?" "Not me," said Skulduggery. "Her." "Me," said Stephanie. "You?" said the traffic warden. "Yes," said Stephanie. "I"m sorry, who are you?" Stephanie looked at him. "I'm Her, he's Me. Got it? Good. You better get out of here before you blow our cover. They've got snipers.

Living our lives was like living in a long house. We entered as babies at one end, and we exited when our time came. And in between we moved through this one, great, long room. Everyone we ever met, and every thought and action lived in that room with us. Until we made peace with the less agreeable parts of our past they’d continue to heckle us from way down the long house. And sometimes the really loud, obnoxious ones told us what to do, directing our actions even years later.

Suppose a problem in psychology was set: What can be done to persuade the men of our time — Christians, humanitarians or, simply, kindhearted people — into committing the most abominable crimes with no feeling of guilt? There could be only one way: to do precisely what is being done now, namely, to make them governors, inspectors, officers, policemen, and so forth; which means, first, that they must be convinced of the existence of a kind of organization called ‘government service,’ allowing men to be treated like inanimate objects and banning thereby all human brotherly relations with them; and secondly, that the people entering this ‘government service’ must be so unified that the responsibility for their dealings with men would never fall on any one of them individually.

Beauvoir left their home wanting to call his wife and tell her how much he loved her, and then tell her what he believed in, and his fears and hopes and disappointments. To talk about something real and meaningful. He dialed his cell phone and got her. But the words got caught somewhere south of his throat. Instead he told her the weather had cleared, and she told him about the movie she'd rented. Then they both hung up.

Murder was deeply human. A person was killed and a person killed. And what powered the final thrust wasn't a whim, wasn't an event. It was an emotion. Something once healthy and human had become wretched and bloated and finally buried. But not put to rest. It lay there, often for decades, feeding on itself, growing and gnawing, grim and full of grievance. Until it finally broke free of all human restraint. Not conscience, not fear, not social convention could contain it. When that happened, all hell broke loose. And a man became a monster.

Normally death came at night, taking a person in their sleep, stopping their heart or tickling them awake, leading them to the bathroom with a splitting headache before pouncing and flooding their brain with blood. It waits in alleys and metro stops. After the sun goes down plugs are pulled by white-clad guardians and death is invited into an antiseptic room. But in the country death comes, uninvited, during the day. It takes fishermen in their longboats. It grabs children by the ankles as they swim. In winter it calls them down a slope too steep for their budding skills, and crosses their skies at the tips. It waits along the shore where snow met ice not long ago but now, unseen by sparkling eyes, a little water touches the shore, and the skater makes a circle slightly larger than intended. Death stands in the woods with a bow and arrow at dawn and dusk. And it tugs cars off the road in broad daylight, the tires spinning furiously on ice or snow, or bright autumn leaves.

The Catholic Church wasn't just a part of his parents' live, and his grandparents', it ruled their lives. The priests told them what to eat, what to do, who to vote for, what to think. What to believe. Told them to have more and more babies. Kept them pregnant and poor and ignorant. They'd been beaten in school, scolded in church, abused in the back rooms. And when, after generations of this, they'd finally walked away, the Church had accused them of being unfaithful. And threatened them with eternal damnation.

I respect people who have such passion. Emile was saying. "I don't. I have a lot of interests, some I'm passionate about, but not to the exclusion of everything else. I sometimes wonder if that's necessary for geniuses to accomplish what they must, a singularity of purpose. We mere mortals just get in the way. Relationships are messy, distracting. He travels the fastest who travels alone, quoted Gamache. You sound as though you don't believe it. It depends where you're going, but no, I don't. I think you might go far fast, but eventually you'll stall. We need other people. ... We all need help.

Years ago, when I was working on my master's thesis, I went to New York for a semester as an exchange student. What struck me most was the sky. On that side of the world, so far away from the North Pole, the sky is flat and gray, a one-dimensional universe. Here, the sky is arched, and there's almost no pollution. In spring and fall the sky is dark blue or violet, and sunsets last for hours. The sun turns into a dim orange ball that transforms clouds into silver-rimmed red and violet towers. In winter, twenty-four hours a day, uncountable stars outline the vaulted ceiling of the great cathedral we live in. Finnish skies are the reason I believe in God.

Middlemarch is a novel that is diminished by being put on the screen. It can't help but be, because so much of what we enjoy in Middlemarch is the interplay between what the characters do and what we know about them because of the telling voice. It's less of a problem for the cinema when it deals with novels that are purely concerned with action and what people do. I haven't thought this through, and I'm just trying it now to see what it sounds like. But maybe it would be less a problem with novels that are told in the first person. The interesting thing to me about Middlemarch, and Thackeray's Vanity Fair, and several other great novels, is precisely this omniscient, as we call it, third person, which naive readers mistake for the author. It isn't George Eliot who is saying this; it's a voice that George Eliot adopts to tell this story. There can be something very interesting in a novel like Bleak House, which was also done very well on the television by the same adapter, Andrew Davis. Now, Bleak House is told in two voices, as you remember. One is the somewhat trying Esther Summerson, who is a paradigm of every kind of virtue, and the other is a different sort of voice entirely, a voice that tells the story in the present tense, which was unusual for the time, a voice that doesn't seem to have a main character attached to it. But I think that Dickens is playing a very subtle game here. I've noticed a couple of things about that second narration that make me wonder whether it isn't Esther herself writing the other bits of it. For instance, at the very beginning, she says, "When I come to write my portion of these pages . . ." So she knows that there is another narrative going on, but nobody else does. Nobody else refers to it. The second thing is that she is the only character who never appears in those passages of present-tense narration. The other characters do. She doesn't. Why would that be? There's one point very near the end of the book where she almost does. Inspector Bucket is coming into the house to collect Esther to go and look for Lady Dedlock, who's run away, and we hear that Esther is just coming -- but no, she's turned back and brought her cloak, so we don't quite see her. It's as if she's teasing us and saying, "You're going to see me; no, you're not." Now, that's Dickens, at the height of his powers, playing around -- in ways that we would now call, I don't know, postmodern, ironic, self-referential, or something -- with the whole notion of narration, characterization, and so on. Yet, it doesn't matter. Those things are there for us to notice and to enjoy and to relish, if we have the taste for that sort of thing. But the events of Bleak House are so thrilling, so perplexing, so exciting that a mere recital of the events themselves is enough to carry a whole television adaptation, a whole play, a whole story. It's so much better with Dickens's narrative playfulness there, but it's pretty good without them.