The Long Way Home Quotes
"But he’d come to agree with Sister Prejean that no one was as bad as the worst thing they’d done."
"Because they would lead him to the truth. And while the truth might set some free, it landed the people Gamache sought in prison. For life."
"There is a balm in Gilead, to make the wounded whole—"
"It’s like drinking acid, and expecting the other person to die."
"Every artist is different. I’m his mother. I know Peter. Some might thrive in the middle of nowhere, but Peter needs stimulation."
"That was it, thought Reine-Marie. The slight inflection in Armand’s voice earlier in the evening when he’d learned Annie and Jean-Guy were coming down. It was more than pleasure at seeing his daughter and her husband."
"And while Clara wanted Peter, she also wanted peace. She was as prepared as she could be."
"What do we do first?" "First? Let me think about that. We can probably find out a lot and not even leave home."
"We all need to be healed at some time in our lives. We’ve all been deeply hurt."
"Art college isn’t just about art, as it turns out. It’s also about attitude."
"Attitude is tiring after a while. And boring. Predictable. You were fresh, different."
"He married you. He could have chosen any of the bright, attractive, successful students here."
"In the end he was attracted not to the talented girls with attitude, but to the apparently talentless, marginal girl."
"Peter’s landscape was flat. An endless, predictable desert."
"The mind, he knew, really was its own place. Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven."
"Most saints were assholes. In fact, if he wasn’t one that would disqualify him completely."
"Love has an aroma all its own, you know."
"It’s not like we’re turning them into masterpieces in our minds now that we know a kid hadn’t painted them."
"Sometimes the only way up is down. Sometimes the only way forward is to back up."
"A poem begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness."
"Any real act of creation is first an act of destruction."
"There’s a difference between being in sanctuary and being in hiding."
"The chances of Constable Stuart finding any trace of Peter Morrow’s activity from months ago were tiny. Still, he was willing to try and Gamache was grateful."
"We express ourselves differently. Some choose words, some notes, some paint, but it all comes from the same place."
"What’s the use of healing, if the life that’s saved is callow and selfish and ruled by fear?"
"Life is made up of 'no big deals' that combine to create a catastrophe."
"I think if there was a muse for art, then Clarence Gagnon had found her. Here, in Baie-Saint-Paul. There’re lots of beautiful places in Québec, but this one is like a magnet for artists."
"You have to understand, I hadn’t given this fellow No Man a thought in years. Artist colonies pop up around here all the time."
"We know for sure Peter was here. Now we need to know if he’s still here, and if not, where he went."
"A muse might inspire them, but it doesn’t make them great artists or guarantee success."
"I thought I might even find him with another woman. But I always thought I’d find him. Alive."
"I think muses exist. I think something happens when an artist or writer or musician meets someone who inspires them."
"He lived the life of a religieux here. A monk."
"It was like Gagnon stripped the skin off the world and painted the muscle and sinew and veins of a place."
"Hundreds of millions of people believe in a God of some sort. They believe in karma, in angels, in spirits and ghosts. In reincarnation and heaven. And the soul. They pray and light candles and chant and carry good-luck charms and interpret events as omens. And I’m not talking about marginal people. This is the mainstream."
"It really doesn’t matter if the Muses exist. What matters is that No Man believed it. He believed it so strongly he risked ridicule and even his job. That’s powerful, Armand, but it’s something else. That kind of passion, that kind of certainty, is very attractive. Especially to people who are directionless."
"Isn’t that what inspiration is? It can’t be locked up, or even channeled. It can’t be contained or controlled. And that’s what the tenth muse was offering."
"I think I mentioned that this isn’t my main home. I stay here on weekends when the gallery’s busy. My main home is up the coast a few miles. I need to go back there tonight, but you’re welcome to stay here."
"Driven out of another place, thought Gamache. Or maybe not."
"I think there was no spaceship," he said.
"I thought and thought about it, and realized what a coward I’d been all our lives. Never defending her or her art. Letting everyone criticize and belittle. And finally even doing it myself when I realized how brilliant she really was. I tried to ruin her art, Armand."
"I wanted to take her one special thing. A gift. I thought and thought about it, and realized what a coward I’d been all our lives."
"Professor Massey loved art. Knew art. I think that painting by Professor Norman must’ve been so great even he couldn’t destroy it."
"But it’s not him. The very act of creation had killed him."
"It wasn’t a delusion. It was there all along. Beside me in bed. Sitting in the garden. It was in the studio next to mine. In the chair next to mine."
"I want to sit in our garden and hear about her year, and tell her about mine."
"Peter’s eyes had a faraway look, the panic gone."
"You’re walking down the hill now. There’s Ruth. And Rosa."
"I’ve poured you a beer. I’m holding your hand. You can smell the roses. And the lilies."
"But you’re all something. Professor Massey was nothing. Empty. Like the canvas. I found that terrifying."