The Madness of Crowds Quotes

“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.”
― Louise Penny, The Madness of Crowds

“But correct and right were two different things. As were facts and truth.”
― Louise Penny, The Madness of Crowds

“The trick wasn’t necessarily having less fear, it was finding more courage.”
― Louise Penny, The Madness of Crowds

“Armand knew the terror of that first step. He also knew that the key to a full life was taking it. The trick wasn’t necessarily having less fear, it was finding more courage.”
― Louise Penny, The Madness of Crowds

“Jean-Guy Beauvoir hadn't much seen the use of libraries, though he'd never have said that to Annie or her parents, who saw les biblioteques as sacred places.

He hadn't grown up going to one, and now, with the internet and easy access to information, he couldn't imagine why libraries still existed. That is, until he'd gone with Annie and Honore to a children's hour at their local library. He'd seen the wonder in his son's eyes as the librarian read to them.

He'd seen Honore's excitement at getting to choose books himself to take out. How he clutched them to his chest, as though he could read with his heart.

Through his infant son, Jean-Guy discovered that libraries held treasures. Not just the written word, but things that couldn't be seen.”
― Louise Penny, The Madness of Crowds

“I’m sorry.’ ‘I was wrong.’ ‘I don’t know.’” As he listed them, Chief Inspector Gamache raised a finger, until his palm was open. “‘I need help.”
― Louise Penny, The Madness of Crowds

“It’s about what happens when gullibility and fear meet greed and power.”
― Louise Penny, The Madness of Crowds

“They’re kind. Content. They don’t judge. They don’t hide their feelings. There’s no hidden agenda. Complete acceptance. If that isn’t grace, I don’t know what is. I’m not saying people with Down syndrome are perfect or always easy. That would be to trivialize them, make them sound like pets. What I am saying is that in my experience they make better humans than most.” He smiled again. “Than me. And I think that’s worth fighting for, don’t you?”
― Louise Penny, The Madness of Crowds

“As a diversion, few things were as effective as chocolate cake.”
― Louise Penny, The Madness of Crowds

“First you scare them, then you offer them your false hope. It’s disgusting. But it works. And now the politicians, familiar with the power of fear, have bought your potion wholesale.”
― Louise Penny, The Madness of Crowds

“Long dead and buried in another town My mother isn’t finished with me yet.”
― Louise Penny, The Madness of Crowds

“when people died, they didn’t go away. They were very much alive in the minds, in the hearts, in the vivid memories of those left behind. And they were not always easy to live with. Some ghosts had demands.”
― Louise Penny, The Madness of Crowds

“What is essential is invisible to the eye. Knowledge, ideas, thoughts. Imagination. All invisible. All lived in libraries. But”
― Louise Penny, The Madness of Crowds

“Though dour and childless himself, the grocer was unfailingly kind and patient with children. As though instead of having none, he had them all.”
― Louise Penny, The Madness of Crowds

“Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds.”
― Louise Penny, The Madness of Crowds

“What people do for power. How they’re willing to mutilate themselves, physically, intellectually, morally, for power and position.”
― Louise Penny, The Madness of Crowds

“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.”
― Louise Penny, The Madness of Crowds

“Professor Robinson was revealing, not creating, the anger. The fear. And yes, perhaps even the cowardice they kept hidden away. She was like some genetic mutation awakening illnesses that would have normally lain dormant.”
― Louise Penny, The Madness of Crowds

“Isabelle [Lacoste] sat quietly for a moment, looking into the naked woods. Only in the winter was it possible to see both the forest and the trees. Homicide, she thought, was a perpetual winter.”
― Louise Penny, The Madness of Crowds

“It’s good to be reminded now and then that such things exist.” “What things?” “Beauty. Peace.” She held his eyes. “Goodness. But they’re fragile and can so easily disappear, unless people are willing to do what’s necessary to defend them.”
― Louise Penny, The Madness of Crowds

“What is essential is invisible to the eye. Knowledge, ideas, thoughts. Imagination. All invisible. All lived in libraries.”
― Louise Penny, The Madness of Crowds

“And now here is my secret, a very simple secret. It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”
― Louise Penny, The Madness of Crowds

“Armand knew the terror of that first step. He also knew that the key to a full life was taking it. The trick wasn't necessarily having less fear, it was finding more courage.”
― Louise Penny, The Madness of Crowds

“Do no harm was part of Hippocrates’s writing, but from a different text. On epidemics.”
― Louise Penny, The Madness of Crowds

“unbalanced, in that she sees quite clearly what’s wrong with the world but can’t seem to see what’s right.”
― Louise Penny, The Madness of Crowds

“Thus human courts acquit the strong, And doom the weak, as therefore wrong.”
― Louise Penny, The Madness of Crowds

“No,” said Armand. “The outside won’t change, but the inside might. We can but hope.” “We can do more than that, Chief Inspector, if we choose. Hope on its own is rarely enough.”
― Louise Penny, The Madness of Crowds

“Knowledge, ideas, thoughts. Imagination. All invisible. All lived in libraries.”
― Louise Penny, The Madness of Crowds

“The madness of crowds was a terrible thing to see. The madness of police with clubs and guns was even worse.”
― Louise Penny, The Madness of Crowds

“But they, better than most, knew that no place was really safe from physical harm. Anything could happen to anyone, at any moment. What made a place safe were the people. The caring. The kindness. The helping. Sometimes the mourning. And often the forgiveness.”
― Louise Penny, The Madness of Crowds