Armand Gamache Quotes

Chief Superintendent Arnot might hold power, but Armand Gamache was the more powerful man. ~ Louise Penny

The bistro was his secret weapon in tracking down murderers. Not just in Three Pines, but in every town and village in Quebec. First he found a comfortable café or brasserie, or bistro, then he found the murderer. Because Armand Gamache knew something many of his colleagues never figured out. Murder was deeply human, the murdered and the murderer. To describe the murderer as a monstrosity, a grotesque, was to give him an unfair advantage. No. Murderers were human, and at the root of each murder was an emotion. Warped, no doubt. Twisted and ugly. But an emotion. And one so powerful it had driven a man to make a ghost.

Gamache's job was to collect the evidence, but also to collect the emotions. And the only way he knew to do that was do get to know the people. To watch and listen. To pay attention, and the best way to do that was in a deceptively casual way in a deceptively casual setting.

Like the bistro. ~ Louise Penny

The reason Armand Gamache could go there was because it wasn't totally foreign to him. He knew it because he'd seen his own burned terrain, he'd walked off the familiar and comfortable path inside his own head and heart and seen what festered in the dark. And one day Jean Guy Beauvoir would look at his own monsters, and then be able to recognize others. And maybe this was the day and this was the case. He hoped so. ~ Louise Penny

... it's not the truth about others that will set you free, but the truth about yourself. ~ Louise Penny

One day that ego of yours'll kill you. That's all it is, you know. You pretend it's selfless, you pretend to be the great teacher, the wise and patient Armand Gamache, but you and I both know it's ego. Pride. Be careful, my friend. She's dangerous. You've said so yourself. ~ Louise Penny

I said I was only going to recite them once, and he could do with them as he wished." Armand Gamache lowered his fork to his plate and listened. "I don't know. I was wrong. I'm sorry." Lacoste recited them slowly, lifting a finger to count them off. "I need help," the Chief said, completing the statements. ~ Louise Penny

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. ~ Louise Penny

I don't know. I need help. I was wrong. I'm sorry." Armond Gamache ~ Louise Penny

Don't allow yourself to waste that chance. Don't succumb to any…distractions."
I could only imagine my expression. Miss Swanston lowered her candy-red lashes and glanced back at Armand.
"Oh," I said, swallowing. "No. Definitely not."
"Forgive me. He seems quite taken with you."
The bite of roll lodged in my throat; I coughed. "He isn't, I assure you."
"Eleanore, it grieves me to correct you, but he is staring at you even now. He hasn't been able to tear his eyes from you since we arrived."
I couldn't tell her the truth. I couldn't say anything like, Armand doesn't count. Armand's not even in the game. I'm in love with a boy made of stars, and we're going to live together ever after on gold and smoke and moonlight, and that's my happy future, no matter what any of you think.
I scowled down at my plate. "He's simply…"
"Yes?" she prompted, very mild.
I searched for the right word. "I don't know what he is," I admitted finally, frustrated. "Bored, I suppose."
"Yes," she said again, just as mild. "I'm glad you've realized it, too."
"But I'm not dense. He's nobility. I know-I know what I am. I know what to avoid."
"Good," Miss Swanston said once more, and gave me her wistful smile. ~ Shana Abe

I wanted none of it finally. And, deserving nothing better, I closed up like a spider in the flame of a match. And even Armand who was my constant companion, and my only companion, existed at a great distance from me, beyond that veil which separated me from all living things, a veil which was a form of shroud. ~ Anne Rice

I've got the best deal on Earth. Where else can I sin and know that I'm forgiven for it? ~ Armand Assante

Begin, and you are halfway there. ~ Alfred Armand Montapert

If you have no goals you will be bored: you will be unhappy because you are empty. ~ Alfred Armand Montapert

I go out there and make a fool of myself. It's inevitable. ~ Armand Assante

Why did Freud write a book about which he had such doubts? We can only conjecture. Peter Gay wrote that "it is highly plausible that some of the impulses guiding Freud's arguments in Totem and Taboo emerged from his hidden life; in some respects the book represents a round in his never finished wrestling bout with Jacob Freud." Gay also mentions that Freud realized he was "publishing scientific fantasies. ~ Armand M. Nicholi Jr.

A FRIEND IS A PERSON ... With whom you can be sincere ... To whom you never need to defend yourself ... On whom you can depend whether present or absent ... With whom you never need pretend ... To whom you can reveal yourself without fear of betrayal ... Who does not feel she owns you because you are her friend ... Who will not selfishly use you because she has your confidence. I WOULD HAVE SUCH A FRIEND ... AND I WOULD BE SUCH A FRIEND. I DO HAVE SUCH A FRIEND! ~ Alfred Armand Montapert

My batting average has been good, so people ask how much luck is involved. I tell them when I work 14 hours a day, 7 days a week, I get lucky. ~ Armand Hammer

Great persons are great because of good, strong foundations on which they were able to build a character ... ~ Alfred Armand Montapert

I was always Armie. There couldn't be a 90-year-old Armand and a 9-day-old one. And I heard enough jokes about baking soda. ~ Armie Hammer

The good news is that you just need a bit of compassion to become vegetarian, and this is something widely found in the human race. ~ Armand Chauvel

And yet,' Gamache continued in a pleasant voice, 'isn't that what's often taught in meditation? Not the absence of emotion, or swallowing them, but not allowing them to run the show? ~ Louise Penny

To know God is to be adjusted to daily living. ~ Alfred Armand Montapert

The main source of our wealth is goodness. The affections and the generous qualities that God admires in a world full of greed. ~ Alfred Armand Montapert

The duke's son and the pauper girl. I suppose as a couple we were the most interesting thing in view.
I took the champagne glass from Armand and finished what he hadn't. As Sophia had said, it wasn't swill.
So much for my manners.
"Why am I here?" I asked curtly, handing back the empty flute.
"Because I invited you."
I dropped my voice. "Did you find out anything about Rue?"
"Is that why you came?"
"No, I came because I simply can't get enough of people looking down their noses at me. The girls at school are getting frightfully lax about it."
"Are they? How remiss of them. We're taught from the cradle how to look down our noses, you know, we rich sons of bitches. Perhaps Westcliffe's curriculum is a tad too liberal these days."
"Why, yes, my lord," I said very audibly. "I would enjoy seeing the rest of the boat."
"The yacht."
"That, yes. ~ Shana Abe

He doesn't back down under my accusations. Instead he leans in, his big frame curving over me like a wave. "I would do all that and more." His tone betrays a carefully restrained ferocity, and I see in him, shifting and fluttering, behind his eyes the monster I've always known is there. It makes my breath catch, the beautiful horror of it. He doesn't try to hide it, if anything he leans in closer, filling my vision until he fills the world. Him and his dark devil's eyes. ~ Eliza Crewe

If I kiss you now," he whispered as if he'd read her mind....

"I won't be able to stop there."

~Armand ~ C.D. Hussey

His heart filled his chest and ran to the end of his tail and the very tips of his considerable ears. It filled his head, squeezing out his brain. But Henri, the foundling, was a humanist, and while not particularly clever was the smartest creature Gamache knew. Everything he knew he knew by heart. ~ Louise Penny

To survive the Canadian winter, one needs a body of brass, eyes of glass, and blood made of brandy. ~ Louis Armand De Lom D'Arce Lahontan

We should get into the habit of reading inspirational books, looking at inspirational pictures, hearing inspirational music, associating with inspirational friends. ~ Alfred Armand Montapert

And as he felt the final beat of Sonny's heart Gamache had had the impression it wasn't that his old heart had stopped but that Sonny had finally given it all away. ~ Louise Penny

Raking over the past and sifting its dust is an occupation for the idle or the elderly retired. ~ Armand Hammer

Learn to eat problems for breakfast ~ Alfred Armand Montapert

Hullo," he said sleepily, rubbing a hand along his jaw.
He's here in my room, right in the middle of the afternoon. Great God, there's a boy in my bed in my room-
I came to life. "Get out!"
He yawned, a lazy yawn, a yawn that clearly indicated he had no intention of leaving. In the moody gray light his body seemed a mere suggestion against the covers, his hair a shaded smudge against the paler lines of his collar and face.
"But I've been waiting for you for over an hour up here, and bloody boring it's been, too. I've never known a girl who didn't keep even mildly wicked reading material hidden somewhere in her bedchamber. I've had to pass the time watching the spiders crawl across your ceiling."
Voices floated up from downstairs, a maids' conversation about rags and soapy water sounding horribly loud, and horribly close.
I shut the door as gently as I could and pressed my back against it, my mind racing. No lock, no bolt, no key, no way to keep them out if they decided to come up…
Armand shifted a bit, rearranging the pillows behind his shoulders.
I wet my lips. "If this is about the kiss-"
"No." He gave a slight shrug. "I mean, it wasn't meant to be. But if you'd like-"
"You can't be in here!"
"And yet, Eleanor, here I am. You know, I remember this room from when I used to live in the castle as a boy. It was a storage chamber, I believe. All the shabby, cast-off things tossed up here where no one had to look at them." He ~ Shana Abe

I laugh. "How exactly do you see this…" I wave between the two of us, unable to come up with a descriptor
"Beautiful friendship?" he supplies with a devilish grin.
"…going?" I finish, ignoring him. "Us being mortal enemies and all."
"I prefer the term 'star-crossed lovers.'"
I snort. "Regardless, it can't end well."
"The best romances don't. ~ Eliza Crewe

Move out man! Life is fleeting by. Do something worthwhile, berfore you die. Leave Behind a work sublime, that will outline you and time. ~ Alfred Armand Montapert

Literature is air, and I'm suffocating in mediocrity. ~ Armand Assante

Gamache nodded. It was what made his job so fascinating, and so difficult. How the same person could be both kind and cruel, compassionate and wretched. Unraveling a murder was more about getting to know the people than the evidence. People who were contrary and contradictory, and who often didn't even know themselves. ~ Louise Penny

I live a very quiet life, although I'm very urban and a diehard New Yorker. ~ Armand Assante