A Better Man Quotes
"I’m sorry," said Clara Morrow. "I meant to say fuck. Fuckity fuck fuck."
"Clara Morrow is going through her brown period. To say her latest offerings are shit is to be unfair to effluent. Let’s hope it is just a period, and not the end."
"April in Québec was a climatological shitstorm. A mindfuck of epic proportions."
"I was wrong. I’m sorry. I don’t know. I need help."
"Do you write the same poem over and over? No, of course not. But neither do I try to write a novel. It’s all words, but I know what I’m good at. Great at."
"Ah, oui, You were with the security detail at the National Assembly in Québec City."
"Noli timere. It’s Latin. Do you know what it means? It means ‘Be Not Afraid.’"
"I gave her the number for the local shelter."
"What do you think, Ruth?" Gabri asked, raising his voice so she could hear over the rushing waters and her natural inclination to not listen.
"You don’t think you can just swan in here and relax by the fire after we spent all day building the goddamned wall?"
"We don’t know. We’ve just come from her home—" "That was never her home. This’s her home."
"But you’ll have to wait until the temperature drops and the ground hardens,"
"It’s a risk," agreed Gamache. "But one I think we need to take."
"Instead of lashing out physically, they lashed out verbally."
"There’s nothing more important to us, Monsieur Godin," said Gamache, "than finding your daughter. There is, though, that state of emergency I mentioned. We are, for now, the only ones assigned to the search."
"We’re all right, Armand. Sandbagging, of course. But there’s no panic."
"You keep one team at the most vulnerable dam," said Gamache. "In case opening the gates isn’t enough. Then redirect all possible resources to digging those runoffs, the spillways along the tributaries."
"He’s got a gun," said Jean-Guy, his sharp eyes not leaving the man slipping and stumbling toward them.
"I don’t care who you are. You’re on my land."
"The water level’s dropping! It’s worked. It’s dropping."
"I’m sorry, but Chief Superintendent Toussaint can’t take your call right now."
"It’s true. I feel it, too. This’s a particularly nasty case."
"She wasn’t interested, but you continued to harass her."
"My drunk and knocked-up wife? She was leaving me to go to the father. What did she think was going to happen? It was her fault."
"And then they continued on. Their flashlights bobbing wildly ahead of them, illuminating trees, path, rocks, river."
"Jesus, even Clouseau can’t be that stupid," said Ruth.
"People are canceling their orders for my works."
"I think she was murdered. I think that she was hit so hard in the chest she fell off the bridge."
"It’s likely that’s what happened. I could testify to it."
"Meaning I doubt she took the pill. And you know that this bottle"—she held it up—"wasn’t from a prescription, right? It’s almost certainly black market."
"I slept on it for three months. First time in my life I felt safe."
"You’re insulting those who once loved your work, who once supported you. You’re insulting the art world. And, worst of all, you’ve squandered, cheapened your talent."
"No fraud could do that. Once I saw that, I revisited all your other paintings and saw what you were really doing. You’re subversive, my friend."
"I saw your latest exhibition," said Dominica. "In the cooperative collection of miniatures at the Brooklyn Art Space. Very generous of you, by the way, to agree to show with unknowns."
"I think we have enough," said Beauvoir. "We’re going to leave you now."
"It’s all right," said Gamache softly. "No one needs to get hurt. We’re almost done."
"Sometimes we just have to let go. And trust. There is a way back. Believe me."
"I thought about killing myself. But when it came down to it, I realized that what I really wanted was for the pain to stop."
"I didn’t really want to die, but I didn’t know how to live. How to go on."
"Isabelle Lacoste saw what she was meant to see. Isabelle Lacoste saw the truth."
"You get a reputation... Rumors with just enough truth in them to do damage."
"I’d have ripped the head off anyone who tried to stop me."
"I think if she could’ve added something, she would’ve."
"Stuff's in the bag. Everything's ready. Will be done tonight. I promise."
"In case. Simone Fleury said many abused women pack a bag and keep it hidden. Sometimes for months—years, even. Ready to grab when the moment is right."
"Because I knew how it would look. And I knew I hadn’t killed her. Vivienne was gone. Carl Tracey killed her."
"I think she was saving up. To leave Tracey. I think that was her plan for a long time."
"I’ll pray that you grow up a brave man in a brave country. I will pray you find a way to be useful."
"No, I don’t mean that. Your relationship with her."
"She didn’t want to. She had to be pushed, hard. But she finally told us."
"I think you need to tell us what happened," said Beauvoir.
"It just didn’t. I thought of her as a friend. She wanted more, but I didn’t. Couldn’t."
"Maybe Homer gave Lysette the impression that Vivienne wouldn’t approve, without actually saying it."
"This isn’t a terrible act. It’s the one decent thing I can do for Vivienne. To make up for all the damage. All the pain I caused her. I owe her this."
"Vivienne was standing about where you are," said Lysette. "She got upset. Started yelling at me that I didn’t know. It just… It just all came out, of both of us."
"Sometimes you just have to do something stupid."
"Why did Vivienne marry Carl Tracey? Why would a supposedly smart young woman marry a man so clearly violent, abusive?"
"She needed to face her abuser," said Cameron. "Look him in the eye. Confront him."
"I’m sorry to say we’ll have to pension you off. While you’ll keep most of your salary and your benefits, I’ll have to ask for your ID and your weapon back. Your security code will no longer be valid."