“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.”

“Books were everywhere in their large apartment. Histories, biographies, novels, studies on Quebec antiques, poetry. Placed in orderly bookcases. Just about every table had at least one book on it, and oftern several magazines. And the weekend newspapers were scattered on the coffee table in the living room, in front of the fireplace. If a visitor was the observant type, and made it further into the apartment to Gamache's study, he might see the story the books in there told.”

“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.”

“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.”

“Clara shrugged and immediately knew her betrayal of Peter. In one easy movement she'd distanced herself from his bad behavior, even thought she herself was responsible for it. Just before everyone had arrived, she'd told Peter about her adventure with Gamache. Animated and excited she'd gabbled on about her box and the woods and the exhilarating climb up the ladder to the blind. But her wall of words hid from her a growing quietude. She failed to notice his silence, his distance, until it was too late and he'd retreated all the way to his icy island. She hated that place. From it he stood and stared, judged, and lobbed shards of sarcasm.'You and your hero solve Jane's death?''I thought you'd be pleased,' she half lied. She actually hadn't thought at all, and if she had, she probably could have predicted his reaction. But since he was comfortably on his Inuk island, she'd retreat to hers, equipped with righteous indignation and warmed by moral certitude. She threw great logs of 'I'm right, you're an unfeeling bastard' onto the fire and felt secure and comforted.”

“They were cunning,deceitful,arrogant and nearly incomprehensible,especially the Anglos. They were dangerous because they hid their thoughts,hid their feelings behind a smiling face. Who could tell what was really going on in their heads? They said one thing and thought another. Who knew what rancid thing lived ,curled up,in the space between words and thoughts.”

“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.”