People instinctively let down their guard when they saw a limp, an illness, a flaw in someone else. Not out of compassion but because it made them feel superior. Stronger. Those people, Gamache knew, did not always last long. It was not a useful instinct.

She had a new feeling, the feeling of danger; on which a new remedy rose to meet it, the idea of an inner self or, in other words, of concealment.

There was some derangement in her equilibrium that kept her immune from her own decent

She tasted for the first time honey-sweet and dangerous happiness: dangerous because, as she before long began to learn, precarious.

Though not fearful of measurable dangers, she feared the unknown.

Frightened by something in her own nature

She could not explain in so many words, but she felt that those who prepare for all the emergencies of life beforehand may equip themselves at the expense of joy.

And she tried the high heels but she couldn't bring herself to prance.

But what put distance between me and almost everybody else in that platoon is that I didn’t let my desire for comfort rule me.

But sometimes that comfort was an illusion. Masquerading as protecting, while actually imprisoning.

She had the experience to suffer with discretion.

She had put despair and fear aside, as if they were garments she did not choose to wear.

The more you fight against and feel shame for spending time in your Comfort Zone, the more you are in danger of compromising trust with yourself.

The hood was strangely comforting, but comfort can be dangerous. Comfort provides a floor but also a ceiling.