It's a fine thing to rise above pride, but you must have pride in order to do so.

A poor man with nothing in his belly needs hope, illusion, more than bread.

The first sign of corruption in a society that is still alive is that the end justifies the means.

Little things seem nothing, but they give peace, like those meadow flowers which individually seem odorless but all together perfume the air.

Hope is a risk that must be run.

Suicide only really frightens those who are never tempted by it and never will be, for its darkness only welcomes those who are predestined to it.

Faith is not a thing which one loses, we merely cease to shape our lives by it.

...the most dangerous shortsightedness consists in underestimating the mediocre.

You owe it to everyone you love to find pockets of tranquility in your busy world.

Civilization exists precisely so that there may be no masses but rather men alert enough never to constitute masses.

What a cunning mixture of sentiment, pity, tenderness, irony surrounds adolescence, what knowing watchfulness! Young birds on their first flight are hardly so hovered around.

Jesus, is Gamache hiring fetuses now?

Attention is the most concrete expression of love. What we pay attention to thrives. What we do not pay attention to withers and dies. What will you pay attention to today?

Suffering! ... We owe to it all that is good in us all that gives value to life we owe to it pity we owe to it courage we owe to it all the virtues.

Don't stop to ask whether the animal or plant you meet deserves your sympathy, or how much it feels, or even whether it can feel at all: respect it and consider all life sacred.

I'm never satisfied with what I do.

I want do some kind of action movie, car chases and explosions.

Part of what I want to do is sort of reclaim my story - it belongs to me and to my children, who have to live with whoever their mother is.

It's too bad I'm not a flirt. When I'm on the sets, I'm too busy working on my scenes to look at the ladies.

To take a single step beyond the text would be to take possession of a boundless field of power.

To stay interested in tennis, I have to mix it up with other things.