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Fighting is never good. But sometimes necessary. -- Jim Butcher
This is Waldo Butters, and his geek penis is longer and harder than any of ours put together. -- Jim Butcher
I'm not exactly a useless cream puff. -- Jim Butcher
Death is only frightening from the near side. -- Jim Butcher
See, here's the thing. Morgan was right: you can't win them all. But that doesn't mean that you give up. Not ever. Morgan never said that part - he was too busy living it. -- Jim Butcher
Make ready to repel boarders. -- Jim Butcher
I kept a straight face while my inner Neanderthal spluttered and then went on a mental rampage through a hypothetical produce section, knocking over shelves and spattering fruit everywhere in sheer frustration, screaming, 'JUST TELL ME WHOSE SKULL TO CRACK WITH MY CLUB, DAMMIT! -- Jim Butcher
Light shines brightest in the deepest dark! -- Jim Butcher
Bob wasn't precisely a friend to me but ... I was used to him. In a way he was family, the mouthy, annoying, irritable cousin who was always insulting you but who was definitely at Thanksgiving dinner. I had never considered the possibility that one day he might be something else. -- Jim Butcher
There is a primal reassurance in being touched, in knowing that someone else, someone close to you, wants to be touching you. There is a bone-deep security that goes with the brush of a human hand, a silent, reflex-level affirmation that someone is near, that someone cares. -- Jim Butcher
You defy beings that should cow you into silence. You resist forces that are inevitable for no more reason than that you believe they should be resisted. You bow your head to neither demons nor angels, and you put yourself in harm's way to defend those who cannot defend themselves. -- Jim Butcher
You can tell a lot about a man from how he treats his dog, -- Jim Butcher
The human mind is not a terribly logical or consistent place. -- Jim Butcher
None of my issues have included memory loss or unconscious actions," she said.
Thomas squinted back at her. "If they had, how would you know it?"
Molly frowned. "Valid point. -- Jim Butcher
I'm amazing and studly, but I have limits. -- Jim Butcher
It doesn't make you a monster to want, she said, her voice very gentle. It's what you do with it that matters. -- Jim Butcher
I hurled my fear and my loneliness, my love and my respect, my rage and my pain. I made of my thoughts a hammer, infused with the fires of creation and tempered in the icy power of the darkest guardian the earth had ever known. -- Jim Butcher
So once again, let me be perfectly clear. If anything happens to Murphy and I even *think* you had a hand in it, fuck right and wrong. If you touch her, I'm declaring war on you. -- Jim Butcher
A succubus on the set. Strike that, the health-conscious kid sister made it two ... succubuses. Succubusees? Succubi? Stupid Latin correspondence course. -- Jim Butcher
Being a wizard gives you more power than most, but it doesn't change your heart. We're all human. We're all of us equally naked before the jaws of pain. -- Jim Butcher
Wow. That's sort of pretty. In a Jaws kind of way. -- Jim Butcher
The last time I was at a supernatural shindig, I got poisoned and then everything there tried to kill me. So I burned the whole place to the ground. -- Jim Butcher
Faeries like pizza?" I asked.
"Oh, Harry," Toot said breathlessly. "Haven't you ever had pizza before?"
"Of course I have," I said.
Toot looked wounded. "And you didn't share? -- Jim Butcher
Because a sound tree doesn't have bad roots, Amara. No enterprise of greatness
begins with treachery, with lying to the people who trust and love you -- Jim Butcher
Go back," he said.
"Can't. Stand aside?"
"Can't."
"So it's like that?" I said.
Fix exhaled. Then he nodded. "Yeah."
And for the first time in a decade the Winter Knight and Summer Knight went to war. -- Jim Butcher
I flicked a comb through my wet hair, for all the good it would do, and said, "How do I look?"
"Mostly human," she said.
"That's what I was going for. -- Jim Butcher
Love is patient. Love is kind. Love always forgives, trusts, supports, and endures. Love never fails. When every star in the heavens grows cold, and when silence lies once more on the face of the deep, three things will endure: faith, hope, and love. -- Jim Butcher
Faith is about what you do. It's about aspiring to be better and nobler and kinder than you are. It's about making sacrifices for the good of others
even when there's not going to be anyone telling you what a hero you are. page 202 -- Jim Butcher
Kincaid, evidently exhausted himself, drew a gun, took the safety off, placed it on his chest, and went to sleep too.
"It's cute," I whispered to Murphy. "He has a teddy Glock. -- Jim Butcher
There are bad things in the world. There's no getting away from that. But that doesn't mean nothing can be done about them. You can't abandon life just because it's scary, and just because sometimes you get hurt. -- Jim Butcher
I have a monster under my bed, and it's Mouse. -- Jim Butcher
She pressed the rest of her clothes into my hands and said, "Don't do anything weird with them."
"I was going to shellac them into a dining set and serve a four-course meal in them," I said, "but if you're gonna get all squeamish about it, I guess I'll just hold them for you. -- Jim Butcher
Every soul is special. They're all beautiful. They're all far more significant than anyone on this rock realizes. I think when people are at their best, they're acting in accordance with their soul. The ones who have gone bad don't have bad souls. They've just given up on keeping in touch with them. -- Jim Butcher
I work in grand halls and bedchambers with wine and perfume. Not in dark alleyways with cloaks and knives. I don't like knives. I don't even own a knife. And my cloaks are far too expensive to risk bloodying. -- Jim Butcher
My brother threw up his hands. "What does a woman need to do, Harry? Rip her clothes off, throw herself on top of you, and shimmy while screaming, 'Do me, baby!'?" he shook his head. "Sometimes you're a frigging idiot. -- Jim Butcher
Sheep can befriend a hungry wolf only for briefly. -- Jim Butcher
I looked, noted details mechanically, and quietly shut the door on the part of my head that had started screaming the second I entered the room. -- Jim Butcher
Behold the angry wizard puttputt-putting away. My -- Jim Butcher
Kestus idly added theoretical torture to the theoretical murder, because done right, it might be funny. -- Jim Butcher
Come with me if you want to live. -- Jim Butcher
There is no spoon. -- Jim Butcher
I had bitten into my tongue, and I either had to spit or swallow. I swallowed. No comments, please. -- Jim Butcher
Fear is a funny thing. In the right light, even tiny and insignificant fears can suddenly grow, swelling up to monstrous proportions. -- Jim Butcher
Let come the forces of night! We will stand!"
"We will get the hell out of here is what we will do," I muttered. -- Jim Butcher
What the hell kind of Hell was this supposed to be? -- Jim Butcher
Home is where, when you go there and tell people to get out, they have to leave. -- Jim Butcher
In the void, there is no distinction of east and west."
Gwen blinked slightly at that. "I know all of those words, and yet when strung together like that I have no idea what they mean. -- Jim Butcher
They always have good coffee here," Ebenezar said a few moments later. "And they don't call it funny names," I said. "It's just coffee. Not frappalattegrandechino. -- Jim Butcher
He was wrong, that doesn't make him a villian. That makes him an asshole. -- Jim Butcher
Tropical trees had been planted throughout the room, along with bright flowering plants that were busy committing the olfactory floral equivalent of aggravated assault. -- Jim Butcher
Then this," Grimm said, "is what I believe professional inquisitors refer to as a clue."
"In my considered judgment as an occasional inquisitor for the Spirearch," Benedict said, "I believe you may be correct. -- Jim Butcher
You think you're funny." "Oh, I know I'm funny. Unappreciated, but funny. -- Jim Butcher
If you turn into a hideous monster and I am sent to slay you, I will remember this and make it as painless as I can, out of respect for you. -- Jim Butcher
That woman," Grimm said quietly, "drives me quite insane."
Kettle grunted. "Why'd you marry her, then? -- Jim Butcher
Try not to look like that," Ascher said under breath, after we were in the elevator.
"Like what?" I asked.
"Like you're expecting ninjas to leap out of the trash cans. This is a party."
"Everyone knows there's no such things as ninjas," I scoffed. "But it will be something. Count on it. -- Jim Butcher
The wacky thing about those bad guys is that you can't count on them to be obvious. They forget to wax their mustaches and goatees, leave their horns at home, send their black hats to the dry cleaner's. They're funny like that. -- Jim Butcher
I sometimes give myself excellent advice. Occasionally, I even listen to it. -- Jim Butcher
Mortimer Lindquist seemed to have finally given in to the inevitable. I'd seen him with a bad toupee, and with an even worse comb-over, but this was the first time I'd seen him sporting a full-on Charles Xavier. -- Jim Butcher
Bob, would you be willing to take on Evil Bob?"
Bob's eyes darted nervously. "I'd ... prefer not to. I'd really, really prefer not to. You have no idea. That me was crazy. And buff. He worked out. -- Jim Butcher
BLARGLE SLORG NOTH HARGHLE FTHAGN! You know. The usual. -- Jim Butcher
(One does not simply walk into Mordor--except that was exactly what everyone in the story did anyway.) -- Jim Butcher
Kincaid rounded the far corner. He was dressed in his customary black clothing again, fatigue pants, and a hunting jacket over body armor, and he had enough guns strapped to his body to outfit a terrorist cell, or a Texan nuclear family. -- Jim Butcher
No, Bob. Just no. For crying out loud. She's seventeen.
Better move quick, then, Bob said. Before anything starts to droop. Taste of perfection while you can, that's what I always say.
.....
The perverted little creep has a point, my host. -- Jim Butcher
Truth does not become untruth simply because its existence upsets the scion of a High House. -- Jim Butcher
And the sex," I said. "It will be frequent. Possibly violent. You'll be screaming. Neighbors will make phone calls. -- Jim Butcher
What was the point in all the fighting with gauntlets if they were only going to stop fighting the moment the outnumbered fools decided the fight was over? Rowl flicked his tail in exasperation. Humans. -- Jim Butcher
I'd made the vampire cry. Great. I felt like a real superhero. Harry Dresden, breaker of monsters' hearts. -- Jim Butcher
My laboratory,' I said, experimentally, drawing out each syllable. 'Why is it that saying it like that always makes me want to follow it with 'mwoo-hah-hah-hahhhhh'? '
'You were overexposed to Hammer Films as a child?'
- Harry Dresden & Bob the Skull, Changes, Jim Butcher -- Jim Butcher
Michael titled his head. "But . . . Uriel, if I were to misuse it . . ." "I would Fall," Uriel said quietly. I choked on the air. Holy crap. The last time an archangel Fell, I'm pretty sure there were extended consequences. -- Jim Butcher
There's power in the night. There's terror in the darkness. Despite all our accumulated history, learning, and experience, we remember. We remember times when we were too small to reach the light switch on the wall, and when darkness itself was enough to make us cry out in fear ... -- Jim Butcher
Just like credit card companies, or those student loan people. Now there's evil for you. -- Jim Butcher
bullies either. He'd be glad to have -- Jim Butcher
Maybe I should have listened to Murphy. Maybe I should have stayed home and played with some nice, safe, forbidden black magic instead. -- Jim Butcher
You can be such an asshole, Dresden, I swear. -- Jim Butcher
In for a sheep, in for a gargant. -- Jim Butcher
Put some clothes on, you weird, yellow-eyed, table-dancing, werewolf-training, cryptic, stare-me-right-in-the-eyes-and-don't-even-blink wench. -- Jim Butcher
Yeah, I should probably eat more vegetables, too," I said, "but let's face it. That isn't going to happen. So what's up? -- Jim Butcher
The Black Hole?" Grey asked, incredulously. "Nobody quotes The Black Hole, Dresden. Nobody even remembers that one." "Hogwash. Ernest Borgnine, Anthony Perkins, and Roddy McDowall all in the same movie? Immortality. -- Jim Butcher
I even heard that they can bring people back from the dead."
"Jesus," Butter swore.
"I kinda doubt they had anything to do with that one."
"No, no, I meant --"
"I know what you meant. t was a joke, Butters. -- Jim Butcher
Here's where I ask why don't you spend your time doing something safer and more boring. Like maybe administering suppositories to rabid gorillas. -- Jim Butcher
It isn't good to hold on too hard to the past. You can't spend your whole life looking back. Not even when you can't see what lies ahead. All you can do is keep on keeping on, and try to believe that tomorrow will be what it should be - even if it isn't what you expected. -- Jim Butcher
Ignorance is more than bliss, it's freaking orgasmic ecstacy! -- Jim Butcher
He gave me a severe look over his spectacles and said, as if he thought the words were deadly venom and might kill me, You are an untidy person. -- Jim Butcher
You can't win a war sitting behind a wall and hoping the enemy decides to leave. -- Jim Butcher
An errand is getting a tank of gas or picking up a carton of milk or something. It is not getting chased by flying purple pyromaniac gorillas hurling incendiary poo! -- Jim Butcher
Love is another kind of power, which shouldn't surprise you. Magic comes from emotions, among other things. And when two people are together, in that intimacy, when they really, selflessly love each other it changes them both. It lingers on in the energy of their lives, even when they are apart. -- Jim Butcher
Good Lord, I'm regretting this now," I muttered. "I have never - ever - smelled BO this bad in my life. And I once had s'mores wit a Sasquatch."
"Hang out with him for awhile," Mort gasped. "Eventually it's not so bad."
"Wow. Really?"
"No. Not really. -- Jim Butcher
Even days that culminate in a grand battle against an insane ghost and a trip across the border between this world and the spirit realm usually start out pretty normally. -- Jim Butcher
Pain is a byproduct of life. That's the truth. Life sometimes sucks. That's true for everyone. But if you don't face the pain and the suck, you don't ever get the other things either. Laughter. Joy. Love. Pain passes, but those things are worth fighting for. Worth dying for. -- Jim Butcher
Kincaid! Bolshevik Muppet! -- Jim Butcher
The human mind isn't a terribly logical or consistent place. Most people, given the choice to face a hideous or terrifying truth or to conveniently avoid it, choose the convenience and peace of normality. That doesn't make them strong or weak people, or good or bad people. It just makes them people. -- Jim Butcher
You're mad," the fallen angel said.
"Get me some Alka Seltzer and I'll foam at the mouth, too. -- Jim Butcher
It isn't about being fair and equal. It's about the difference between right and wrong." He stared out at the bloody Elinarch. "And this was wrong. -- Jim Butcher
I mean, go figure. You prepare your home for an assault and you don't take zombies into consideration. I'd fallen victim to one of the other classic blunders, along with not getting involved in a land war in Asia and never going in against a Sicilian when death was on the line. -- Jim Butcher
Dammit, man. I'm a Faerie Princess, not a forensic analyst." I -- Jim Butcher
I've had sex that didn't feel as good as Maeve's smile. -- Jim Butcher
This is what it looks like when someone's fighting for his soul," she said. "He needs his friends to believe in him. The fastest way for us to help make him into a monster is to look at him like he is one. -- Jim Butcher
The past was gone. Nothing could change what had already been. Looking back at it, letting its wounds fester, indulging in regret was just a different, slower way to die. The living moved forward. -- Jim Butcher
I grunted. "She's not a delicate princess," I said. "She's a warrior. Warriors have enemies. Sometimes warriors get hurt." I felt my jaws clench. "And then their friends even things up. -- Jim Butcher
Rest. Heal. Sleep. I shall most likely kill you on the morrow."
"You? A Princess Bride quote?" I croaked.
"What is that?" she asked. -- Jim Butcher
Keep it up, wise guy. I'm always going to be taller than you once you're lying unconscious on the ground. -- Jim Butcher
I love you," Journeyman said to the lift crystal. He kissed it and spread his arms across its surface in an embrace. "I love you, you big, beautiful beast. I want you to marry me. I want you to bear my children."
"Chief," Grimm said, reproachfully, but his heart wasn't in it. -- Jim Butcher
Smiling always seems to annoy people more than actually insulting them. Or maybe I just have an annoying smile. -- Jim Butcher
Polka will never die. -- Jim Butcher
Nipple erection on command - now that's method acting. Oh, -- Jim Butcher
More than anything, I wanted to crawl into a hole and pull it in after me. I wanted to be not. -- Jim Butcher
If your opponent has you by fifty pounds, winning a fight against him is a dubious proposition, at best. If your opponent has you by eight thousand and fifty pounds, you've left the realm of combat and enrolled yourself in Road-kill 101. Or possibly in a Tom and Jerry cartoon. -- Jim Butcher
Some things just aren't meant to go together. Things like oil and water. Orange juice and toothpaste. -- Jim Butcher
Which in retrospect just goes to show that a pretty face can inspire even a bodiless spirit of intellect to dizzying heights of idiocy. -- Jim Butcher
They say screwy things, make odd choices which, in retrospect, they feel amazingly foolish for making. -- Jim Butcher
Stop learning, start dying. -- Jim Butcher
I folded my arms. "I don't usually do stakeouts."
"I thought it might be a nice change of pace for you. All that knocking down of doors and burning down of buildings must get tiring."
"I don't always knock down doors," I said. "Sometimes it's a wall. -- Jim Butcher
She gave me a hard look. "No one likes a wiseass, Harry."
"Are you kidding? As long as the wiseass is talking to someone else, people love 'em. -- Jim Butcher
So you really could die. Your godmother is right, you know. You are mad as a hatter. Nutty as a fruitcake." "Crazy like a fox," I said. -- Jim Butcher
No," she said. "You are not Patrick Swayze. I am not Demi Moore." She touched a switch on the little box and it started ticking. "And this sure as hell isn't pottery class. -- Jim Butcher
Never touch my brother on his fucking birthday. -- Jim Butcher
The One created us all to be free. To learn. To find common cause with others and to grow stronger and wiser. But the ancient enemy perverts that union of strengths. With the enemy, there is no choice, no freedom. They take. They force a joining of all things, until nothing else remains.
Doroga -- Jim Butcher
She had never gotten it through her gentle head that there was a time for a soft paw and a time for red claws. -- Jim Butcher
Night wasn't so much falling as sharpening its claws. -- Jim Butcher
Strength is the first virtue," Alera said. "That is not a pleasant fact. Its distastefulness does not alter the truth that without strength to protect them, all other virtues are ephemeral, ultimately meaningless. -- Jim Butcher
All power is the same. Magic. Physical strength. Economic strength. Political strength. It all serves a single purpose-it gives its possessor a broader spectrum of choices. It creates alternative courses of action. -- Jim Butcher
There had to be something I could do. Had to be. There had to be. -- Jim Butcher
Death by nursery tale. Hell's bells. -- Jim Butcher
I'll talk you through," Kincaid said. "Dresden, better take her gun and cover us."
"Hey," I said. "I'm in charge here. Kincaid, talk her through it. Murphy, give me your gun so I can cover you. -- Jim Butcher
I'd had a key to the marina's locks at one time, but I'd lost track of it when I got shot, drowned, died, got revived into a coma, haunted my friends for a while, and then woke up in Mab's bed.
(My life. Hell's bells.) -- Jim Butcher
I checked my gear, my pockets, my shoelaces, and realized that I had crossed the line between making sure I was ready and trying to postpone the inevitable. -- Jim Butcher
No one was standing in the shadows smoking a cigarette or looking about with a shifty-eyed gaze. I couldn't see anyone quickly hiding a bloody knife behind his back or twirling a moustache, either. That ruled out the Dudley Do-Right approach to finding the killer. -- Jim Butcher
I mean it," I said. "You're in danger."
"Relax, Harry. I'm not letting anyone lick me, and I'm not looking anyone in the eyes. It's kind of like visiting New York. -- Jim Butcher
I was casting everything I had done, everything I believed, everything I had chosen - everything I was - against the will of an ancient being of darkness, terror, and malice, a fundamental power of the world. And the bonds and the will of Mother Winter could not constrain me. -- Jim Butcher
Guys who get their name splashed all over history and folklore don't tend to be Boy Scout troop leaders. -- Jim Butcher
Ebenezar blinked . Then he turned his face to me his expression clearly asking whether or not I was out of my damned mind .
"Wile E. Coyote" I said to him soberly . "Suuuuuuper Genius -- Jim Butcher
Black Court vampires. I just shortened it some."
Ebenezar tsked. "Blampires. That's the problem with you young people. Shortening all the words. -- Jim Butcher
There're things we keep hidden from one another. Things we hide from ourselves. Things that are kept hidden from us. And things no one knows. You always learn the damnedest things at the worst possible times. -- Jim Butcher
When I finally got tired of arguing with her and decided to write a novel as if I was some kind of formulaic, genre writing drone, just to prove to her how awful it would be, I wrote the first book of the Dresden Files. -- Jim Butcher
God isn't about making good things happen to you, or bad things happen to you. He's all about you making choices
exercising the gift of free will. God wants you to have good things and a good life, but He won't gift wrap them for you. You have to choose the actions that lead you to that life. -- Jim Butcher
Susan's fingers wandered, and her eyes sparkled. "Your mouth says no," she purred, "but this says yes."
I went up on my toes, and swallowed, trying to keep my balance and get her hand off me at the same time. "That thing is always saying something stupid," I told her. -- Jim Butcher
Give it to 'em!" Take 'em down!" First Aleran!" Kick their furry
" Assault formation! -- Jim Butcher
This is why you're all kernels and I'm a major general. 'Cause you got corn silk in your ears. -- Jim Butcher
Everything's mine, Francis," she replied in a merry tone. "The only question is whether or not it knows it is yet. -- Jim Butcher
We're always disappointed when we find out someone else has human limits, the same as we do. It's stupid for us to feel that way, and we really ought to know better, but that doesn't seem to slow us down. -- Jim Butcher
Whenever you've got a choice, do good, kiddo. It isn't always fun or easy, but in the long run it makes your life better. -- Jim Butcher
Regardless of what I think about Islam or Wicca or any other religion, the fact is that it's a group of people. Every faith has its ceremonies. And since it's made up of people, every faith also has its assholes. -- Jim Butcher
Gruff," I said, "I find myself largely clueless about why mortal women do what they do. It will take a wiser man than me to understand what's in a fae woman's mind. -- Jim Butcher
You can't change what has already happened. But you choose what to do next. Which means that you only cross over to the dark side if you choose to do it. -- Jim Butcher
Every jungle creature for fifty or sixty yards started raising holy hell on the what-the-fuck-was-that party line. -- Jim Butcher
Fire," she whispered. "Wind. I see dark things and a dark war. I see my death coming for me, out of the spirit world. And I see you at the middle of it all. You're the beginning, the end of it. You're the one who can make the path go different ways."
"That's your vision? Iowa has less corn. -- Jim Butcher
Butters," rumbled Skaldi Hair Ball. If he really had broken fingers, it didn't look like they were bothering him much. "When are you going to get in this ring and train like a man?"
"About five minutes after I get a functional lightsaber," Butters replied easily, much to Hair Ball's amusement. -- Jim Butcher
Like life is short," he said. "Like you don't know when it's going to end. Like some things, left unsaid, can't ever be said. -- Jim Butcher
At the moment I was mad enough to chew up nails and spit out paper clips. -- Jim Butcher
The curve of her smile promised things that were probably illegal, and bad for you, and would carry warnings from the Surgeon General, but that you'd still want to do over and over again. -- Jim Butcher
I sidestepped the vampire's rush, and drove my half of the former blasting rod down at its back, Buffy-like.
Maybe it works better on television. -- Jim Butcher
Sometimes the things that are good for you, in the long run, hurt for a little while when you first get to them. -- Jim Butcher
It bothered me that he was right. Without Sir Stuart's intervention, I'd have been dead again already.
That's right
you heard me: dead again already.
I mean, come on. How screwed up is your life (after- or otherwise) when you find yourself needing phrases like that? -- Jim Butcher
Oh, what would you like on your vegetarian pizza?" "Dead pigs and cows," I said. She glanced up at me and wrinkled her nose. "They're vegetarians," I said defensively. -- Jim Butcher
I'm pretty sure lurking in a dark alley to mug me with your apology isn't the usual way to go about saying you're sorry. But I didn't read that Mars-Venus book, so who knows. -- Jim Butcher
It seemed like people could go one of two ways: Either freak out and start rioting, or they actually act like human beings in trouble out to, and look out for one another. When LA blacked out, there had been big time rioting. In New York, people had pulled together. -- Jim Butcher
Even in winter, the cold isn't always bitter, and not every day is cruel. -- Jim Butcher
A second later the door opened and Murphy glared up at me, blue eyes bright and cold. "Get more away. I've been fighting this computer all day long. I swear, if you blow out my hard drive again, I'm taking it out of your ass."
"Why would your hard drive be in my ass?" I said. -- Jim Butcher
Thwart," I said. "To prevent someone from accomplishing something by means of visiting gratuitous violence upon his smarmy person."
"I'm pretty sure that isn't the definition." Sarissa said.
"It is today. -- Jim Butcher
Chew and smile? At the same time? Do I look like Jackie Chan? -- Jim Butcher
The moon rose in silver splendor into an October sky strewn with pale clouds and brilliant stars. The clouds churned, a white-foam sea, and the moon was a vast, graceful clipper ship, its sails full of spectral light as it ran before the strength of the cold autumn winds. -- Jim Butcher
Evil isn't the real threat to the world. Stupid is just as destructive as Evil, maybe more so, and it's a hell of a lot more common. What we really need is a crusade against Stupid. That might actually make a difference. -- Jim Butcher
WIZARD
Lost items found. Paranormal Investigations.
Consulting. Advice. Reasonable Rates.
No Love Potions, Endless Purses, or Other Entertainment. -- Jim Butcher
Many women have earned titles, Your Grace. It doesn't seem to have been a factor in whether or not they actually received them. -- Jim Butcher
Cell phones were like those security guys in red shirts on old Star Trek: as soon as something started happening, they were always the first to go. -- Jim Butcher
The belts do more than make you fuzzy, Denton. They change the way you think. The way you act. -- Jim Butcher
I hate it when the real world ignores a perfectly logical, rational assumption. -- Jim Butcher
When I'm in turmoil, when I can't think, when I'm exhausted and afraid and feeling very, very alone, I go for walks. It's just one of those things I do. I walk and I walk and sooner or later something comes to me, something to make me feel less like jumping off a building. -- Jim Butcher
But a century from now, your mortal associates will be rotting in the earth, whereas, barring amputation or radical shifts in fashion, you will still be putting your pants on one leg at a time. -- Jim Butcher
His voice was like the rest of him - about as exciting as a W-2. -- Jim Butcher
Butters's voice turned bitter. "Them or us, choose a side?" "It's not about taking sides," Karrin said. "It's about knowing yourself. About understanding why you make the choices you do. Once you know that, you know where to walk, too. -- Jim Butcher
Dammit. What kind of weapons are they toting?" "Uh, teeth. Mostly teeth, Harry." I glared at him. "Not the dogs. -- Jim Butcher
People don't give a flying fuck if Uncle Jeffrey really forgives them for missing his last birthday party. They want to know that the world is a place where Uncle Jeffrey can and should forgive them. -- Jim Butcher
The mad rarely know that they are mad. It's the rest of the world, I think, that seems insane to them. -- Jim Butcher
Living was a dangerous past-time, and often quite painful - but there was also such joy in living, such beauty, things that one would otherwise never see, never experience, never know. The risk of pain and loss was a part of living. -- Jim Butcher
Don't call me a dinosaur. It isn't fair to the dinosaurs. What did a dinosaur ever do to you? -- Jim Butcher
Insecurity, thy name is teenager. -- Jim Butcher
the worst madmen don't seem odd at all," Grimm said. "They appear to be quite calm and rational, in fact. Until the screaming starts. -- Jim Butcher
Let's sum up: an unknown number of enemies with unknown capabilities, supported by a gang of madmen, packs of attack animals, and superhumanly intelligent pocket change. -- Jim Butcher
If you weren't getting pretty close to crazy right now, would you be talking to yourself right now? -- Jim Butcher
I got the sneaking suspicion that the vampire was a couple of Peeps short of an Easter basket. -- Jim Butcher
Dismembering monsters with a chain saw is one thing. People are another." "Yeah. People are easier." "Bob," I growled. "They're people. -- Jim Butcher
I didn't have any money or ID. I didn't have a credit card. Hell, I didn't have a business card.
What would it say? 'Harry Dresden, Winter Knight, Targets Slain, No Barbecues, Waterslides, or Fireworks Displays. -- Jim Butcher
For the sake of one soul. For one loved one. For one life." I called power into my blasting rod, and its tip glowed incandescent white. "The way I see it, there's nothing else worth fighting a war for. -- Jim Butcher
I'm dealing with a lot of scary things. I think you have to react to them. And you either laugh at them or you go insane. -- Jim Butcher
Because Nicodemus is a murderous murdering murderer, I said. -- Jim Butcher
I respected the man. It didn't mean that I wouldn't pants him on national television if I got the opportunity, -- Jim Butcher
Legionares are not afraid of dinner," Max growled, giving the taurg a dire glare. "Dinner is afraid of legionares. -- Jim Butcher
If I lived through the next day or so, I needed to start keeping track of where these jokers liked to get their bloodthirsty freak on. It might give me an edge someday. Or at least a list of places that could use a nice burning down. I hadn't burned down a building in ages. -- Jim Butcher
Hush, Harry. Or you'll go to the special hell.
I blinked at that, confused. I'm not supposed to be the guy who doesn't get the reference joke, dammit. -- Jim Butcher
Your ability to comprehend your environment is very strongly defined by your belief in a number of illusions. Time. Truth. Love. -- Jim Butcher
What one deserves and what one experiences are seldom congruent. -- Jim Butcher
Look, people go on and on about how size isn't everything, and how the bigger they are, the harder they fall, but the people who say that probably haven't ever faced down a charging demon-bear so big it should have been on a drive-in movie screen. -- Jim Butcher
I hadn't gotten beaten up twice, shot, and nearly strangled to get taken out by a misguided werewolf bitch. -- Jim Butcher
I've done smarter things in my life. Once, for example, I threw myself out of a moving car in order to take on a truckload of lycanthropes singlehandedly."
~Harry Dresden -- Jim Butcher
You're such a cynic," Molly said. "I think cynics are playful and cute. -- Jim Butcher
Death is just one more Path. One you'll come to in time. -- Jim Butcher
Murphy, you rock! Go team Dresden!"
"Hey, I'm the one who rocks ... Go team Murphy. -- Jim Butcher
Hospital waits are bad ones. The fact that they happen to pretty much all of us, sooner or later, doesn't make them any less hideous. -- Jim Butcher
You're in America now," I said. "Our idea of diplomacy is showing up with a gun in one hand and a sandwich in the other and asking which you'd prefer. -- Jim Butcher
But I'd never been very good at expressing myself verbally. -- Jim Butcher
He'd died a hero. It seemed so empty to me, at that moment. Meaningless to be a hero. -- Jim Butcher
Maybe they'd use biological or chemical weapons instead. Maybe they'd crash the world economy. Maybe they'd turn every program on television into one of those reality shows."
"That's mostly done already, Harry."
"Oh. Well. I've got to believe that the world is worth saving anyway. -- Jim Butcher
If I'd realized how rabid he was to catch me slipping, I wouldn't have added more fuel to his fire by hitting him in the mouth.
Okay. I probably still would have hit him in the mouth. But I wouldn't have done it quite so hard. -- Jim Butcher
Mac folded his arms on the bar and looked at me intently and said, in a resonant baritone, "You've got to be very careful, Harry."
I looked at him, shocked. He'd ... used grammar. -- Jim Butcher
I've gotten into two fights since I've begun studying the martial arts, and each time, I was worried I'd kill the guy. One of my teachers always told me I had good power but bad control. -- Jim Butcher
There was a sound like a human yawn, and then the skull turned slightly toward me and asked, "What's up, boss?"
"Evil's afoot."
"Well, sure," Bob said, "because it refuses to learn the metric system. Otherwise it'd be up to a meter by now. -- Jim Butcher
If he stayed close enough to Maggie for long enough, the dog might wind up with more education than me. Then there'd be no talking to him. -- Jim Butcher
it would be a real pity to die when I'd finally put tabs on who had gotten me into this mess - -- Jim Butcher
Of course Evil's afoot. If it had switched to the metric system it'd be up to a meter by now. -- Jim Butcher
I hadn't realized, until I actually heard his voice, how much I'd missed the demented little perv. -- Jim Butcher
Books were expensive, as well. But she'd read enough of them to know that they were only as valuable as the contents of their writers' minds - and to her it seemed that a great many writers, had they been merchants, would have precious little inventory. -- Jim Butcher
I was seducing shepherdesses when you weren't a twinkle in your great-grandcestor's eyes. I think I know what I'm doing. -- Jim Butcher
Thomas came last, buckling on his gun belt, which was currently hung with his ridiculously huge Desert Eagle, just in case we were attacked by a rabid Cape buffalo. -- Jim Butcher
Rowl was not prepared to tolerate incompetence where his personal human was concerned. He had just gotten her properly trained. -- Jim Butcher
I'd hate to find out that the universe really wasn't conspiring against me. It would jerk the rug out from under my persecution complex. -- Jim Butcher
I'd been in hairier situations than this one. Actually, it's sort of depressing, thinking how many times I'd been in them. But if experience had taught me anything, it was this: No matter how screwed up things are, they can get a whole lot worse. -- Jim Butcher
Her flawless pale skin was also spangled with gemstones. I don't know how they'd been attached, but they clung to her and sent little flashes of color glittering around the cavern when she moved. They were concentrated most densely around her ... well ... She'd been, ah, vajazzled. -- Jim Butcher
I'd gone with my usual option. I was running through long tunnels filled with demons and monsters and nightmares, because it was easier than going to the gym. -- Jim Butcher
I'm not a doctor," Butters said.
We'd done this dance several times. "You are the Mighty Butters," I said. "You can do anything. -- Jim Butcher
None of us had known the layout to Marcone's place, so we'd chosen to approach from the rear, on general principles of sneakiness. -- Jim Butcher
Santa is a much bigger and more powerful faery than Toot, and I don't know his true name anyway. You'd never see me trying to nab Saint Nick in a magic circle even if I did. I don't think anyone has stones that big. -- Jim Butcher
Love you. That should have been simple enough to say. But the words stuck hard in my throat. I'd never said them to anyone I didn't lose, -- Jim Butcher
So really, it was just as well that Godmother had caught up to me, in spite of my best efforts to avoid her. I'd hate to find out that the universe really wasn't conspiring against me. It would jerk the rug out from under my persecution complex. -Harry -- Jim Butcher
It's a tradition," Grimm said. "Were traditions rational, they'd be procedures. -- Jim Butcher
My God, there are times when the sexiest thing a woman can give a man is permission. -- Jim Butcher
Somewhere out there was a village I'd deprived of it's idiot. -- Jim Butcher
You'd think as long as I was gambling with my soul, I would have thought to get Mab to throw in fifty bucks an hour plus expenses. -- Jim Butcher
Same result, only I'd be steam-cooked instead of roasted. -- Jim Butcher
Butters blinked at looked at Thomas. "My God," he said. "You've been shot."
Thomas hooked a thumb at Butters. "Check out Dr. Marcus Welby, MD, here."
"I'd have gone with Doogie Howser, maybe," I said.
"Split the difference at McCoy?" Thomas asked.
"Perfect. -- Jim Butcher
There are some basic tenets that ninety-nine percent of all Wiccans follow, but at its core the faith is all about individual freedom. Wiccans believe that as long as you aren't hurting anyone else by doing it, you should be free to act and worship in whatever way you'd like. -- Jim Butcher
She'd grown up in a strict household; she'd gone insane with freedom the minute she ran away and got out on her own. -- Jim Butcher
Inari screamed and swung her stake, but her Buffy impersonation wasn't any better than mine. -- Jim Butcher
I don't believe in faeries! -- Jim Butcher
He had no frame of reference, and couldn't read - most faeries were studiously averse to print. -- Jim Butcher
There are old swordsmen and bold swordsmen. But few old, bold swordsmen. -- Jim Butcher
Not gonna bind ya or break ya, old spirit. Just gonna kick your ass up between your ears. -- Jim Butcher
You walk through the door and everything goes to hell." "That's embroidered on my towels, actually. -- Jim Butcher
I am blind and limited. I would be a fool think myself wise. And so, not knowing what the universe means, I can only try to be responsible with the knowledge, the strength, and the time given to me. I must be true to my heart. -- Jim Butcher
It rained toads the day the White Council came to town. -- Jim Butcher
Injun Joe studied the body for a moment, his eyes sad. Then he said, "I'd rather go in my sleep, I think." He glanced back at me. "What about you?"
"I want to be stepped on by an elephant while having sex with identical triplet cheerleaders," I said. -- Jim Butcher
Chocolate fends off all kinds of nasty stuff. And if you get hungry while warding off evil, you have a snack. It's multipurpose equipment. -- Jim Butcher
The vampire's true appearance was grotesque
but it wasn't as bad as some of the things I had seen in my day. Some demons were a lot worse, and some of the Elder Things could rip your mind apart just by letting you look at them -- Jim Butcher
Bikers don't wear all that leather around simply for the fashion value or possible felony assaults. It's handy for keeping the highway from ripping the skin from your flesh should you wind up losing control of the bike and sliding along the asphalt for a while. -- Jim Butcher
This is ridiculous. I look like the Games Workshop version of a Jedi Knight. -- Jim Butcher
I was staring into a mirror, and I didn't like what I saw there. -- Jim Butcher
Things were weird enough without needing to ride around in a van with a bunch of naked, somewhat geeky college students. -- Jim Butcher
I love being a wizard. Every day is like Disneyland. -- Jim Butcher
Hope is a force of nature. Don't let anyone tell you different. -- Jim Butcher
Just remember that you're on my list, Marcone. Soon as I get done with all the other evils in this town, you won't be the lesser of them anymore."
Marcone stared at me with half-lidded eyes and said, "Eek. -- Jim Butcher
I think that men ought to treat women like something other than weaker men with breasts. -- Jim Butcher
I felt like a collection of complaints and malfunctions. -- Jim Butcher
In my judgment, my buildings are considerably less likely to burn to the ground during one of your visits if you are disoriented from being treated like a sultan. -- Jim Butcher
He sees the color blue," the etherealist said. "But his color blue. Not yours. -- Jim Butcher
Life would be unbearably dull if we had answers to all our questions. -- Jim Butcher
But all the things Science had promised us hadn't come to pass. Disease was still a problem. Starvation was still a problem. Violence and crime and war were still problems. In spite of the advance of technology, things just hadn't changed the way everyone had hoped and thought they would. -- Jim Butcher
Molly was arrested. Possession."
I blinked at him. "She was possessed? -- Jim Butcher
Isana felt her throat tighten.
"We failed." Serai lifted her chin and patted Isana's arm firmly.
"We have not yet succeeded. There is a difference. -- Jim Butcher
We all must die. There is no better way to do so than in the pursuit of something you love. -- Jim Butcher
Man. Being mostly dead is hard on a guy. -- Jim Butcher
Speak only to those who listen. Anything else is a waste of breath. The answers to your questions were there, if you listened for them. -- Jim Butcher
How long have you been a Wiccan?'
'A what?'
'A pagan. A witch.'
'I'm not a witch,' I said, glancing out the door. 'I'm a wizard.'
Sanya frowned. 'What is the difference?'
'Wizard has a Z'
He looked at me blankly.
'No one appreciates me.' I muttered. -- Jim Butcher
Everybody should get to make a living with their passion. -- Jim Butcher
People have far more power than they realize, if they would only choose to use it. -- Jim Butcher
As a whole, people suck. But a person can be extraordinary -- Jim Butcher
It was a well-known fact that humans became more addled than usual when running in herds. -- Jim Butcher
An inferior sense of smell," Marcus said, as if absolutely nothing of significance had happened, "is distinct from being told that one smells unpleasant. -- Jim Butcher
After the way I left, I suddenly find myself wanting very much to go home. But . . . it won't be the same when I get back. Will it?" "It will be the same," Grimm said. "You're the one who has changed. -- Jim Butcher
The cabin door swung open and Molly belly-crawled onto the deck until she could see me. "Who started shooting at us?"
"Bad guys!" I cringed as another round hit the side of the boat and peppered me with wooden splinters. "Obviously! -- Jim Butcher
The warehouse was a part of the wharves down at the lakeside, and even the chill waters of Lake Michigan were warmer than usual. They filled the air with more than the average water-scent of mud and mildew and eau de dead fishy. -- Jim Butcher
We've both got into the blue beetle. He got into the red door, I got into the white one. -- Jim Butcher
You go back," Jack said. "And you catch the scum who did you." "Back?" I said. "Back to ... " "Earth, yeah," Jack said. "Chicago." He closed the folder and dropped it into his out-box. "You gotta find out who killed you." I arched an eyebrow at him. "You're kidding. -- Jim Butcher
[He] stared at Rowl with flat eyes.
Rowl yawned his unconcern. "If you wish to keep those eyes," he said pleasantly, "move them elsewhere. -- Jim Butcher
Everyone stopped to blink at that for a second. I mean, come on. Impaled by a guided frozen turkey missile. Even by the standards of the quasi-immortal creatures of the night, that ain't something you see twice.
"For my next trick," I panted into the startled silence, "anvils. -- Jim Butcher
At one time in my life, a shapeshifted, demonically possessed maniac crashing through a window and trying to rip my face off would have come as an enormous and nasty surprise.
But that time was pretty much in the past. -- Jim Butcher
Dead before the sun rises, I said. Stars, Bob, why don't you just go over the melodramatic edge and tell me that I'm going to be sleeping with the fishes? -- Jim Butcher
You know, it wouldn't kill you to be a little more polite." "Why take chances," I muttered, -- Jim Butcher
You always a wiseass?" "No. Sometimes I'm asleep." He -- Jim Butcher
Hell's holy stars and freaking stones shit bells. -- Jim Butcher
The man once wrote: Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger. Tolkien had that one mostly right.
I stepped forward, let the door bang closed, and snarled, Fuck subtle. -- Jim Butcher
We wizards are terrific at brooding. -- Jim Butcher
Wizards and computers get along about as well as flamethrowers and libraries. -- Jim Butcher
I slammed the doors open a little harder than I needed to, stalked out to the Blue Beetle, and drove away with all the raging power the ancient four-cylinder engine should muster. Behold the angry wizard puttputt-putting away. -- Jim Butcher
It's dark, close, cold, and intensely creepy down there. The fact that it was inhabited by things that had no love for mankind and potential radioactivity to boot didn't do much to boost its tourism industry. -- Jim Butcher
Vadderung grinned. I've never heard it phrased quite like that, but it's accurate enough. In any event, overcoming that inertia requires tremendous energy, will, and a measure of simple luck. If one wishes to alter the course of history, it's a far simpler matter to attempt to shape the future. -- Jim Butcher
Jobs are a part of life. Maybe you've heard of the concept. It's called work? See, what happens is that you suffer through doing annoying and humiliating things until you get paid not enough money. Like those Japanese game shows, only without all the glory. -- Jim Butcher
There are no words. It was like The Lord of the Rings and All My Children made a baby with the Macho Man Randy Savage and a Whac-A-Mole machine. Butters sputtered -- Jim Butcher
I leaned my head back on the couch and closed my eyes. "I'm not sure what to do next. How are you as a sounding board?"
"I can look interested and nod at appropriate moments," he said.
"Good enough," I said. -- Jim Butcher
In combat situations, your choices can be judged based only against what you knew at the time. To expect anything more of a soldier is to demand that he or she be superhuman. Which seems, to me, unreasonable. -- Jim Butcher
The married thing. Sometimes I look at it and feel like someone from a Dickens novel, standing outside in the cold and staring in at Christmas dinner. Relationships hadn't ever really worked for me. I think it's had something to do with all the demons, ghosts, and human sacrifice. -- Jim Butcher
Wisps of arctic blue and green and purple buzzed and whirled within those sharp spikes, sending out a wild coruscation of coloured light. The aurora was mesmerizing and blinding at the same time, and little disco balls hoped that they could grow up to be half as brilliant one day. -- Jim Butcher
Hardly a man ever made a fool of himself by keeping his bloody mouth shut. -- Jim Butcher
I'm brilliant as well as skilled," he said modestly. "It's a great burden, all of that on top of my angelic good looks. But I try to soldier on as best I can. -- Jim Butcher
If your new boss wanted yo on the island, wouldn't she just have told you to go there?" Thomas asked.
"Seems like," I said. "Taking her orders is pretty much my job now."
Molly snorted softly.
"Maybe I'll grow into it," I said. "You don't know."
Thomas snorted softly. -- Jim Butcher
And may the crows feast on the unjust. -- Jim Butcher
And to my dog, without whom I would not be reminded daily that I am essentially little more than a ridiculous human being who has somehow swindled somebody into paying me to write down conversations with my imaginary friends. -- Jim Butcher
Wizardry aside, it's tough to beat a gun for discouraging men with baseball bats. -- Jim Butcher
I hate feeling like Han Solo in a world of Jedi. -- Jim Butcher
Not every man in the Senate is some kind of masterful schemer, exerting all his energies to acquire more power and influence at the expense of all others." "No," Isana agreed. "Some of them are incompetent schemers. -- Jim Butcher
Monsters are born of pain, and grief, and loss, and anger. Your heart is full of them.-
-"And?"
And it makes you vulnerable. -- Jim Butcher
He's a rather brilliant defensive tactician," Grimm said. "I agree," Bayard said. "The problem is that he's an inept defensive strategist. -- Jim Butcher
What matters is the success or failure of your will. Your will to overcome human weakness. Your will to work. To learn. I will have no shirkers here, boy. -- Jim Butcher
I slip into the archaic at dramatically appropriate moments. So sue me. -- Jim Butcher
Ah," Bridget said, flushing slightly. As the glib-tongued lout in question, she was currently on the receiving end of this facet of the habble's law. "I'm not sure everyone would agree with you. We're a civilized society, are we not?" Esterbrook blinked. "Since when, miss? We're a democracy. -- Jim Butcher
It's tough to say no to peace, to the comfort of it. All through history, people have traded wealth, children, land, and lives to buy it.
But peace can't be bought, can it, chief, prime minister? The only ones offering to sell it always want something more. They lie. -- Jim Butcher
Worry is fear in disguise. -- Jim Butcher
Better the enemy you know than the enemy you don't. -- Jim Butcher
Money is a madness, a delusion-illusion. It's not made of metal, really. It's made of time. How much is one's time worth? If one can convince enough people that one's time is an invaluable resource, then one has lots and lots of money. That's why one can spend time - only one can never get a refund. -- Jim Butcher
Apocalypse is a frame of mind." [Nicodemus] said then. "A belief. A surrender to inevitability. It is a despair for the future. It is the death of hope. -- Jim Butcher
There is more to the world than what a review board publishes about an officer or aeronaut, Miss Lancaster. Guard. Your. Tongue. -- Jim Butcher
Children run everywhere for a reason--it's fun. Grown-ups can forget that sometimes. -- Jim Butcher
If I was on the road to Hell, at least I was going in style. -- Jim Butcher
I let out a battle cry. Sure, a lot of people might have mistaken it for a sudden yelp of unmanly fear, but trust me. It was a battle cry. -- Jim Butcher
You don't have to run faster than the bear to get away. You just have to run faster than the guy next to you. -- Jim Butcher
My friend is going to save a little girl from monsters. I am going with him. That's what friends do. -- Jim Butcher
I run - and not so that I'll be skinny and look good, either. I run so that when something that wants to kill me is chasing me, I'll be good at running. -- Jim Butcher
Keep in mind that this appears in the same book of the Bible that approves the death sentence for a child who curses his parents, owners of oxen who injure someone through the owner's negligence, anybody who works or kindles a fire on Sunday, and anyone who has sex with an animal. -- Jim Butcher
I thought about my father. I usually do, when I get that low. He was a good man, a generous man, a hopeless loser. -- Jim Butcher
It was a loss of identity. I was a wizard. It was more than just a job, more than just a title. Wizardry was at the core of my being. It was my relationship with my magic, the way I used it, the things it let me do that defined me, shaped me, gave me purpose. I -- Jim Butcher
Animals do not do what they have done. Animals kill to eat, to defend themselves or their own, and to protect their territory. Not for the joy of it. Not for the lust of it ... Only humans do that, wizard. -- Jim Butcher
Revenge is like sex, Mister Dresden. It's best when it comes on slow, quiet, until it all seems inexorable. -- Jim Butcher
It's what you do with the want that matters. -- Jim Butcher
I am somewhat proud of this," Mab's cold voice said. "To be sure, the White Christ never suffered so long or so terribly as did this traitor. Three days on a tree. Hardly enough time for a prelude. When it came to visiting agony, the Romans were hobbyists. -- Jim Butcher
I choose my battles, Dresden. Not you." She looked up at me calmly. "Let me put this in terms that will get through your skull: My friend is going to save a child from monsters. I'm going with him. That's what friends do, Harry. -- Jim Butcher
Because nothing says flattery like a gun to the head. -- Jim Butcher
You know how to use magic?" I asked. "I prefer calculus. -- Jim Butcher
A bolt of warmth, fierce with joy and pride and gratitude, flashed through me like sudden lightning. I don't care about whose DNA has recombined with whose. When everything goes to hell, the people who stand by you without flinching - they are your family. And they were my heroes. -- Jim Butcher
A giant caterpillar, its segmented body made of severed human heads, their faces screaming, their tongues functioning as legs, rippled up a wall and began tearing out chunks of concrete where a ledge had been worn, destroying another shrine. -- Jim Butcher
Grimm frowned. "Ah. Um. Am I in any danger?" "You're dead as a stone, man!" "I am?" "Yes. No, actually, not even remotely, but for purposes of this conversation, yes. -- Jim Butcher
It's all right to be afraid. You just don't let it stop you from doing your job. -- Jim Butcher
Science, the largest religion of the twentieth century, had become somewhat tarnished by images of exploding space shuttles, crack babies, and a generation of complacent Americans who had allowed the television to raise their children. -- Jim Butcher
Maybe the Merlin was right. Maybe its better to look stupid but strong, than it is to look smart but weak, I don't know. I'm not sure I want to believe that the world stage bears that strong a resemblance to high school. -- Jim Butcher
We start by sinking a barge," I decided. Then I blinked and looked at the Erlking. "Can we sink a barge?"
The shadow-masked Erlking tilted his head slightly to one side, his burning eyes narrowed. "Wizard, please. -- Jim Butcher
Yeah, chocolate. Chocolate fends off all kinds of nasty stuff. And if you get hungry while warding off evil, you have a snack. It's multipurpose equipment. One -- Jim Butcher
It is often very useful for others to think you less intelligent than you are, "Benedict said, his tone amused. "It works particularly well against those who aren't as intelligent as you in the first place. -- Jim Butcher
Parkour," I panted. "Bitch. -- Jim Butcher
After a few minutes, Molly came partway up the short ladder to the bridge and stopped. "Do I need to ask permission to come up there or something?"
"Why would you?" I asked.
She considered. "It's what they do on Star Trek? -- Jim Butcher
You will probably find, in life, that successes and victories tend to overshadow the risks you took, while failure will amplify how idiotic they were. -- Jim Butcher
She kissed me again, and I returned it in kind, and it was a liquid, smooth thing, as restrained and desperate as the near-still surface of a rushing river. -- Jim Butcher
Better to have the magical arsenal and not need it, than to not have it and get killed to death. I -- Jim Butcher
Ascher eyed me. "You have a very negative attitude. Just relax and we'll get this done. Try not to look around so much. And for God's sake, smile." I smiled. "Maybe without clenching your jaw. -- Jim Butcher
I died," I said. "I died and someone made a clerical error and this is heaven. -- Jim Butcher
It came charging toward me, several hundred pounds of angry-looking monster, and I did the only thing any reasonable wizard could have done.
I turned around and ran like hell. -- Jim Butcher
My name is Harry Dresden," I said.
Fitz stumbled. "Holy shit," he said. "Like ... that Harry Dresden? The professional wizard?"
"The one and only."
He recovered his pace and shook his head. "I heard you were dead."
"Well, yeah," I said, "but I'm taking it in stride. -- Jim Butcher
Ohhhh," Molly said wisely. "Those are fun-time handcuffs, not bad-time handcuffs. I gotcha. -- Jim Butcher
Back to my apartment? The FBI is there just waiting to slap handcuffs on me."
"Well then I guess you shouldn't have decided to become a terrorist, Harry!"
"Hey, I never
"
Bob raised his voice and shouted toward the centipedes, "I'm not with him! -- Jim Butcher
Doesn't matter how pretty you are. What's important is how pretty you feel. No one feels pretty when they hear "no" often enough. -- Jim Butcher
There are moments in your life that, when you look back at them, you realize were perfect. -- Jim Butcher
Life is easier when you can write off others as monsters, demon, as horrible threats that must be hated and feared the thing is you can't do that without becoming them, just a little. -- Jim Butcher
You predicted quick victory. Now it's going to get hopelessly complicated. Jesus, don't you know any better than that by now? -- Jim Butcher
I am just another blind man. I do not get the whole picture of what transpires in all places. I am blind and limited. I would be a fool to think myself wise. And so, not knowing what the universe means, I can only try to be responsible with the knowledge, the strength, and the time given to me. -- Jim Butcher
Yes, I can in fact capitalize any words I desire. The language is English. I am English. Therefore mine is the opinion which matters, colonial heathen. -- Jim Butcher
I still can't believe," Michael said, sotto voce, "that you came to the Vampires' Masquerade Ball dressed as a vampire. -- Jim Butcher
Once you begin to mass-manufacture anything, by the very nature of the process, you lose the sense of personal attachment you might have to something made by hand. -- Jim Butcher
I ... drew out the gun I kept at home, a great big old Dirty Harry Callahan number that weighed about seventy-five thousand pounds. -- Jim Butcher
And just because I don't go to bed with everything with a vagina doesn't mean I'm repressed. -- Jim Butcher
I may have had good reasons. I may have had the best of intentions.
But intentions aren't enough, no matter how good they are. Intentions can lead you to a place where you're able to make a choice.
It's the choice that counts. -- Jim Butcher
Thomas was an annoying wiseass who tended to make everyone he met want to kill him, and when I have that much in common with someone, I can't help but like him a little. -- Jim Butcher
Time after time, history demonstrates that when people don't want to believe something, they have enormous skills of ignoring it altogether. -- Jim Butcher
Bob," I said over my shoulder. "Tell her it's me."
"Can't," Bob said in a dreamy tone. "Boobs. -- Jim Butcher
Boobs are near the center of the universe, until you turn twenty-five or so. Which is also when young men's auto insurance rates go down. This is not a coincidence. -- Jim Butcher
I like to think of it less as embezzling and more as an involuntary goodwill contribution. -- Jim Butcher
Harry Dresden. Saving the world, one act of random destruction at a time. -- Jim Butcher
Lies. Mab cannot change who you are. -- Jim Butcher
It was one of those moments that would have had dramatic music if my life were a movie, but instead I got a radio jingle for some kind of submarine sandwich place blaring over the store's ambient stereo. The movie ofmy life must be really low-budget. -- Jim Butcher
In the Midwest, if you show up to a college town on a weekend, you risk running into a football game. -- Jim Butcher
Parts of Chicago are wondrous fair, and parts of Chicago look postapocalyptic. This block had seen the apocalypse come, grunted, and said, Meh. -- Jim Butcher
The older you get, I should think, the more you will come to understand that the universe is very much a looking glass, Miss Lancaster." "Meaning what, precisely?" "That it reflects a great deal more of yourself to your senses than you probably know. -- Jim Butcher
[Thomas said] "I have my cell phone on me. Try to call before things start exploding."
"Maybe this time it'll be different. Maybe I'll work everything out through reason, diplomacy, dialogue, and mutual cooperation."
Thomas eyed me.
I tried to look wounded. "It could happen. -- Jim Butcher
A smile fought its way through her expression of pain for a moment, and she said, "Yeah, it really kind of was, wasn't it? Was that a Salamander?" "Pretty sure," I said. "They're so much bigger than in those Xanth books. -- Jim Butcher
Okay," Kincaid said. "Anyone have any questions?"
"Why do they sell hot dogs in packages of ten but hot dog buns in packages of eight? -- Jim Butcher
Erlking," I told her. "Big-time bad guy. Wants to eat me."
"Why?" she asked.
"Well. I met him," I said. -- Jim Butcher
Come on," I said to Karrin. "Head for the other boat."
"Should we?" she asked. "That Erlking guy seems a little..do-it-yourselfy. -- Jim Butcher
I stared up at the Erlking, and with my typical pithy brilliance said, Uh-oh. -- Jim Butcher
Love this job," Sanya murmured. "Just love it."
"I need to challenge more people to duels," Thomas said in agreement.
"Men are pigs," Murphy said.
"Amen," said Molly.
Lea gave me a prim look and said, "I've not sacrificed a holy virgin in ages. -- Jim Butcher
I hate what you represent."
...
"Power without conviction." Isana replied, her tone lifeless, matter of fact.
"Ambition without conscience. Decent folk suffer at the hands of those like you. -- Jim Butcher
You don't take your cat with you to go bird shopping. Not because the cat isn't polite, but because he's a cat. -- Jim Butcher
Someone is out there," I said. "Someone who has been manipulating the events. Playing puppet master, stirring the pot, stacking the deck - "
"Mixing metaphors?" Thomas suggested. -- Jim Butcher
Body or mind, heart or soul, we're all human, and we're supposed to feel pain. You cut yourself off from it at your own risk. -- Jim Butcher
Professional Wizard Incinerates Amateur Vampire. News at ten. -- Jim Butcher
Guard glowered at me in silence, of course. It was an act. No one could resist my bluff and manly charisma. In his heart of hearts, he wanted to be friends with me. I just knew it. -- Jim Butcher
I listened. Listening isn't hard to do. No one has practice at it, nowadays, but you can train yourself to pay attention to your senses if you work at it long enough. -- Jim Butcher
Lean forward a little, my lord," Toot said instantly, and shouted, "Hey, Kernal Purpleweed! Come watch the Za Winter Lord Knight's back!"
I fought not to smile. "No, that's a metaphor," I said.
Toot frowned and scratched his head. "I don't know what it's for. -- Jim Butcher
Here had lived someone else who knew that the only thing waiting at home was a sense of loneliness.
Sometimes it is comforting.
Most often, it isn't. -- Jim Butcher
I'm one of those people who think that stories should have a beginning, a middle and an end, and then they're over, and then you tell the next story. -- Jim Butcher
My head was throbbing, and my hands were shaking, but I went down the ladder to my workroom - and started figuring out how to rip someone's heart out of his chest from fifty miles away.
Who says I never do anything fun on a Friday night? -- Jim Butcher
Never point a gun at anything you aren't sure you want dead. -- Jim Butcher
That growing up is all about getting hurt. And then getting over it. You hurt. You recover. You move on. Odds are pretty good you're just going to get hurt again. But each time, you learn something. -- Jim Butcher
She looked up at me with a polite smile, her dark hair long and appealing ... I liked the smile.
Maybe I didn't look like a beaten-up bum. Maybe on me it just looked ruggedly determined.
"I'm sorry, sir," she said, "but the addiction counseling center is on twenty-six."
Sigh. -- Jim Butcher
As a race, we're an enormous bunch of idiots. We're more than capable of ignoring facts if the conclusions they lead to make us too uncomfortable. Or afraid. -- Jim Butcher
Somewhere along the way, their passion had become bottled anger. The anger had fermented into bitter hatred. Then the hatred had fed upon itself, gnawing away at them over years, even decades, until only a shell of cold iron and colder hate remained. -- Jim Butcher
I don't know about your true form, but the weight of your ego sure is pushing the crust of the earth toward the breaking point. -- Jim Butcher
So there I was being strangled by a ranting, half-naked madman in the middle of the woods, with a she-werewolf dangling from a rope snare somewhere nearby. -- Jim Butcher
I took a big dose of Tylenol the original, since I didn't have my Tylenol 3 or its lesser-known, short-lived cousin, Tylenol Two: The Pain Strikes Back. -- Jim Butcher
The blow made her see stars. There was no time for astronomy in ground fighting, she thought, -- Jim Butcher
Don't yadda yadda the Lord, Harry. It's disrespectful. -- Jim Butcher
I knew I didn't have much of a chance of getting away from that swarm of fae piranha, but it was an infinitely larger chance than I would have if I stayed in the car and burned to death. Hell's bells, what I wouldn't give to have my shield bracelet. Or my old staff. I didn't even have an umbrella. -- Jim Butcher
Rule number one of the wizarding business. Never let them see you sweat. People expect us to know things. It can be a big advantage. Don't screw it up by looking like you're as confused as everyone else. Bad for the image. -- Jim Butcher
As far as I can tell, all cats [can see ghosts.] But they aren't terribly impressed with the fact that we're dead and still present. One rarely gets a reaction from them. -- Jim Butcher
The only good thing about having your back to the wall is that it makes it really easy to choose which way you're going to go. -- Jim Butcher
Aaaaaaaagh! I screamed, emerging from the wards and onto Murphy's front lawn, chock-full of new insight as to why ghosts are always moaning or wailing when they come popping out of somebody's wall or floor. Not much mystery there - it freaking hurts. -- Jim Butcher
If the Eagle Scouts had some sort of Sith equivalent, Marcone was it. -- Jim Butcher
When everything goes to hell, the people who stand by you without flinching
they are your family. -- Jim Butcher
Most of the bad guys in the real world don't know that they are bad guys. You don't get a flashing warning sign that you're about to damn yourself. It sneaks up on you when you aren't looking. -- Jim Butcher
That's kind of awesome," I said. "Children frequently are," Michael said. -- Jim Butcher
But I am dead certain
ba-dump-bump-ching
that I'm the first guy to lead an army of spirits in an assault from the spirit-world side ... and had them start off screaming, BOO! -- Jim Butcher
Hat up, go kill her. Problem solved." "Bob," I said. "You can't just go around killing people." "I know. That's why you should do it." "No, no. I can't go around killing people, either." "Why not? You've done it before. And you've got a new gun and everything. -- Jim Butcher
The deepest joys and most terrible wounds were both to be had from family. The -- Jim Butcher
Harry," Bob drawled, his eye lights flickering smugly, "what you know about women, I could juggle. -- Jim Butcher
Empty knight, Harry! Morgan? Morgan? What's wrong with your head?" Thomas shrugged.
"I don't think he did it."
Morgan wouldn't cross the street to piss on you if you were on fire!" Thomas growled, "He's finally getting his comeuppance. Why should you lift a finger? -- Jim Butcher
I kicked the door open, staff held ready to fight, and shouted, And I'm all outta bubble gum! -- Jim Butcher
Honey, I liked the Harry Potter movies, too, but that doesn't mean I ran out and got a Dark Mark tattooed onto my left forearm like you did. -- Jim Butcher
We are as the dead," Sha said. "Our purpose is to dedicate our lives to the service of our lord. And, when it is necessary, to surrender those lives. When we become what we are, we lose our lives - our names, our family, our homes, and our honour. All that remains is our lord. -- Jim Butcher
I believe that there's a cloud for every silver lining,' I said. -- Jim Butcher
The cab of the truck heated up nicely, its windows fogging. I felt like a Dickens character. I thought about explaining that to Mouse, just to occupy my thoughts, but he was suffering enough without being forced to endure Dickens, even by proxy. -- Jim Butcher
Whatever," I said. "It's getting cloying in here. Are we there yet?" He smiled. "Jerk." "Wuss." "Jackass." "Pansy." "Philistine." "Dandysprat." "Butthead." "Whiner ... -- Jim Butcher
Many, many mantles are worn - or discarded - on Halloween night, wizard. -- Jim Butcher
Good man always stands against that. -- Jim Butcher
Heroism doesn't pay very well. I try to be cold-blooded and money-oriented, but I keep screwing it up. -- Jim Butcher
There are people out there who enjoy hurting and scaring others. They're going to keep doing it until you make them stop. -- Jim Butcher
Some men fall from grace. Some are pushed. -- Jim Butcher
I once lost five years listening to a Pink Floyd album. -- Jim Butcher
Jump into an open grave? What kind of idiot are you?" Butters replied. "I might as well put on a red shirt and volunteer for the away team. There's snow and ice and slippery mud down there. That's like asking for an ironically broken neck. -- Jim Butcher
Kids. You gotta love them. I adore children. A little salt, a squeeze of lemon
perfect. -- Jim Butcher
Worry is fear in disguise. And fear will eat you from the inside out if you let it. -- Jim Butcher
I don't know the good or the evil of the thing. That's something that only you mortals worry about. -- Jim Butcher
So I, uh, sort of threw myself out of the passenger seat of a moving car. Don't look at me like that. I'm telling you, it made sense at the time. -- Jim Butcher
Magic comes from what is inside you. It is a part of you. You can't weave together a spell that you don't beleive in. -- Jim Butcher
My brief flash of relief and confidence melted away. Good thing it did, too. I'm sure the world would come to an end if I were allowed to feel a sense of relief and well-being for any length of time. -- Jim Butcher
Mab had the kind of power you had to describe using exponents. -- Jim Butcher
Calliope was never still. Even when she was seemingly motionless, he could see her mind at work, sorting ideas, seeking solutions, cataloging the space around her. To see her beauty, one had to see her in motion. -- Jim Butcher
My magic. That was at the heart of me. It was a manifestation of what I believed, what I lived. It came from my desire to see to it that someone stood between the darkness and the people it would devour. -- Jim Butcher
Where is your unit?" Murphy asked.
I wiggled my eyebrows at her. "Right where it's always been, dollface. -- Jim Butcher
Tequila?" I asked him, skeptically. "Are you sure on that one? I thought the base for a love potion was supposed to be champagne." "Champagne, tequila, what's the difference, so long as it'll lower her inhibitions?" Bob said. "Uh. I'm thinking it's going to get us a, um, sleazier result. -- Jim Butcher
Ha-ha! Ah-hahahaha! I am wizard; hear me roar! -- Jim Butcher
Very few people understand that swords aren't dangerous, Tavi, nor hands nor arms, nor furies. Minds are dangerous. Wills are dangerous. You are heavily armed with both. -- Jim Butcher
Felicia managed to stagger to her feet, open the front door, and limp haltingly to the white limousine idling on the snowy street outside the house. Murphy went to the window to watch Felicia get into the limo and depart.
"Yeah," I said, deadpan. "The little blond woman has two of them. -- Jim Butcher
Bite me, faerie fruitcake. -- Jim Butcher
Thwart: to prevent someone from accomplishing something by means of visiting gratuitous violence upon his smarmy person. -- Jim Butcher
I clenched my jaw as hard as I could. It wasn't much of a stretch to keep pretending to be angry, but I tried to go all Method actor on them. Eat your heart out, Sir Ian. -- Jim Butcher
Hey, Bogart. You and the wonder twins back off or the bedsheet gets it.
Harry Dresden, Death Masks. -- Jim Butcher
Could a man's heart, his soul, perish and yet leave him walking and talking as if alive? -- Jim Butcher
I'm not stupid. I've got eyes. I see some things everyone else tries to pretend aren't there. This vampire craze sweeping the nation. Why the hell shouldn't there be some genuine vampires in it? -- Jim Butcher
If you want to live, if you want your friends and family to live, I expect you to do more than survive it," Mab said, sweeping out. "I expect you to skin them alive. -- Jim Butcher
Love will be the downfall of God himself. -- Jim Butcher
That kind of subtle manipulation always works best amidst a flurry of distractions. Washington's been doing it like that for decades. -- Jim Butcher
Like "love," "hope" is one of those ridiculously disproportional words that by all rights should be a lot longer. -- Jim Butcher
If you can't manage courtesy, try silence. -- Jim Butcher
Righteous. The real deal. He's honest, loyal, faithful. He lives his ideals. It gives him power. -- Jim Butcher
The venom," she [Susan] said quietly. "They call it their Kiss."
"I guess I can't blame them. It sounds a lot more romantic than 'narcotic drool. -- Jim Butcher
God save me from idealists. -- Jim Butcher
But I don't understand God. I don't understand how he could see the way people treat one another, and not chalk up the whole human race as a bad idea. -- Jim Butcher
I used to think I loved it. But now I realize that it's just dependency. -- Jim Butcher
When you die, do you want to feel ashamed of what you've done with your life? Feel ashamed of what your life meant? -- Jim Butcher
You rush a miracle worker, you get lousy miracles! -- Jim Butcher
You may never know a night's peace again. Knowledge is power, young man. Power to do good and power to do harm. Some knowledge can hurt. Some can kill. -- Jim Butcher
Spear and magic helmet," I said in my best Elmer Fudd voice. "Be vewy, vewy quiet. We're hunting vampires. -- Jim Butcher
A mangled corpse in the middle of a blood-drenched floor. Berserk FBI field agents drawing guns and shooting to kill. A little kung fu, a little John Wayne, and a few casual threats.
So far, I thought, my nerves jangling, just one more night on the job. -- Jim Butcher
I swear to you, by my own stunning good looks and towering ego, that I am not lying to you. -- Jim Butcher
He did run some, but I stopped him, my lord. Like, just now. In front of you. Right over there. -- Jim Butcher
Do you know my dog's name?
[ ... ]
"It is from an ancient word, kerberos. It means 'spotted.'"
I blinked. "You're a genuine Greek god. You're the Lord of the Underworld. And ... you named your dog *Spot*? -- Jim Butcher
Lord," Michael said. "We walk into darkness now. Our enemies will surround us. Please help to make us strong enough to do what needs to be done. Amen. -- Jim Butcher
She bowed her head and said, "Lord of hosts, please stand with us against this darkness." The quiet, bedrock-deep energy of true faith brushed against me.
Murphy echoed the gesture and the amen. Thomas and I tried to look theologically invisible. -- Jim Butcher
In the name of the Pizza Lord. Charge! -- Jim Butcher
Men plan. Fate Laughs. -- Jim Butcher
We just have to have faith. The good Lord wouldn't give us more than we could bear. -- Jim Butcher
Michael half-smiled. "The Lord will never give you a burden bigger than your shoulders can bear, Harry. All we can do is face what comes and have faith."
I gave him a sour glance. "I need to get myself some bigger shoulders, then. Someone in accounting must have made a mistake. -- Jim Butcher
Lacuna peered at my shirt. "Aer-O-Smith. Arrowsmith. Does the shirt belong to your weapon dealer?"
"No."
"Then why do you wear the shirt of someone else's weapon dealer? -- Jim Butcher
You are a drug dealer. To tiny faeries. Shame.
Sanya to Dresden -- Jim Butcher
Esmerelda's blue and green eyes could have made Stevie remember being hired by Mister Snuffleupagus, if that was what she wanted. -- Jim Butcher
My stomach rumbled. Like certain other portions of my anatomy, it had a tendency to become easily sidetracked, and to hell with little details like survival. -- Jim Butcher
You know he's not going to honor the truce," I said quietly. "He's going to try to take me out somewhere along the line. He's going to betray me." "Of course," she said. "I expect superior, more creative treachery on your part. -- Jim Butcher
Where germs go?"
"Sunrise," I said. "Poof."
Butter's voice sounded bewildered. "Vampire germs?"
"The tiny capes are a dead giveaway. -- Jim Butcher
You can't plan for everything or you never get started in the first place. -- Jim Butcher
Molly was a big believer in shaping the future by way of carrying anything you might need in a backpack. -- Jim Butcher
I can't believe I'm about to say this," I said. "So think real careful about where this is coming from. Have you people ever considered *talking* when you've got a problem? -- Jim Butcher
Sullen monosyllabism, a sure sign of sleep deprivation. -- Jim Butcher
You may pretend you are like them. But you are not. -- Jim Butcher
Could just be Chicago. Which can be just as scary as Mab, some days. -- Jim Butcher
Tavi looked wildly around the courtyard, and when his gaze flicked toward them, his face lit witha ferocious smile. "Uncle Bernard! Uncle Bernard!" he shouted, pointing at Doroga. "He followed me home! Can we keep him? -- Jim Butcher
And it was all your fault, Harry. -- Jim Butcher
I wouldn't burden any decent system of faith by participating in it ... I'm not agnostic. Just nonpartisan. Theological Switzerland, that's me. -- Jim Butcher
Being here? With you? I've met my subconscious, and he's not that sick. -- Jim Butcher
Run away. Me and Monty Python. -- Jim Butcher
Holy water, a couple cloves of garlic, vials of salt, and iron fillings filled the basket, intended to be door prizes for anything that showed up in an attempt to suck my blood, carry me off to faerieland, or sell me stale cookies. -- Jim Butcher
You're playing the creepy vibe a little hard," I said. "Might as well go for broke, put on a black top hat and pipe in some organ music. -- Jim Butcher
He gave me an inscrutable look that said maybe he would and maybe he wouldn't. Mister was a cat, and cats generally considered it the obligation of the universe to provide shelter, sustenance, and amusement as required. I think Mister considered it beneath his dignity to plan for the future. -- Jim Butcher
One day," I told myself, "one brave and magnificent day, I will actually be cool." I -- Jim Butcher
Here's something else I bet you didn't know about Tyrannosaurs: they don't corner well. -- Jim Butcher
There was a ticking time bomb inside my head and the one person I trusted to go in and get it out hadn't shown up or spoken to me for more than a year. -- Jim Butcher
In the action business, when you don't want to say you ran like a mouse, you call it 'taking cover.' It's more heroic. -- Jim Butcher
Murphy nodded, frowning at the road ahead of her. "The reason treachery is so reveiled," she said in a careful tone of voice, "is because it usually comes from someone you didn't think could possibly do such a thing. -- Jim Butcher
What happens is that you suffer through doing annoying and humiliating things until you get paid not enough money. -- Jim Butcher
Are you always a smartass?' Nope. Sometimes I'm asleep. -- Jim Butcher
The Faerie Courts are duking it out up there, and it's probably going to be very hairy. The Summer Lady is our baddie, and the Winter Knight is her bitch. She has a magic hankie. She's going to use it to change a statue into a girl and kill her on a big Flintstones table at midnight. -- Jim Butcher
You need some time in a quiet place, boss. Unkink your brain's do. Mellow your vibe." "Thank you, Doctor Fraud, -- Jim Butcher
Do you want your blood to stay where it is sochar-lar?"
Tavi lifted both eyebrows at the unfamiliar word, and glanced at Varg.
"Monkey," Varg supplied, in Aleran. "And male-child."
"He called me monkey boy?" Tavi asked. -- Jim Butcher
I secured a doughnut and coffee. I checked with Karrin and Valmont. Neither wanted to save the doughnuts from Nicodemus's corruptive influence. Not everyone can be a crusader like me. -- Jim Butcher
Whatever happened to "Ia, Ia, Cthulu fthtagn"? ... No one has a sense of style anymore
-Harry Dresden -- Jim Butcher
Its amazing waht you can get used to if your daily allowance of bizarre is high enough.' ... Harry Dresden -- Jim Butcher
We had reached the doors to my suite, which still felt awkward to say, even in my own head. My suite. Guys like me don't have suites. We have lairs. -- Jim Butcher
Imagine Smaug's treasure hoard. Now imagine Smaug with crippling levels of obsessive-compulsive disorder and fanatic good taste. -- Jim Butcher
It is how decent, civilized people behave, Captain Ransom. Though I suppose that to someone of your level of moral fortitude, it must seem remarkable. -- Jim Butcher
Discussing a problem with yourself is almost never a good way to secure a divergent viewpoint. -- Jim Butcher
I pressed past the outer branches of the lilacs and found a small and relatively open space in the middle. Then I waited. -- Jim Butcher
There is, I think, humor here which does not translate well from English into sanity. -- Jim Butcher
People always equate beauty with good, but it just ain't so. -- Jim Butcher
I was a man seeking power. For good reasons, maybe. But I wasn't going to lie to myself or anyone else about my actions. If I killed him, I would be taking a life, something that was not mine to take. I would be committing deliberate, calculated murder. -- Jim Butcher
Who," said the man, his accent thick and British, "are you?" "The Great Pumpkin," I responded. "I've risen from the pumpkin patch a bit early because Butters is just that nifty. And you are? -- Jim Butcher
Have you ever felt despair? Absolute hopelessness? Have you ever stood in the darkness and known, deep in your heart, in your spirit, that it was never, ever going to get better? That something had been lost, forever, and that it wasn't coming back? -- Jim Butcher
Damn. Bob was kind of awesome. -- Jim Butcher
Cowl's apprentice was tough and competent, but no amount of training or forethought can prepare you for the sight of an angry dinosaur coming to eat your ass. -- Jim Butcher
Paranoia
because why should the conspiracy theorists get to have all the fun? -- Jim Butcher
I know it's not thematically in tune with my new job and all, but I find it effective. Build a man a fire and he's warm for a day," I say. "But set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life. Tao of Pratchett. I live by it. -- Jim Butcher
A more capable cat is never impressed by a less capable cat. -- Jim Butcher
You're reacted to the fear, but you haven't ever faced it and put it into the fight perspective. You have to make up your mind to overcome it. -- Jim Butcher
That", I said, "is an awfully lovely woman. I thought I should let you know, kid, in case your inexperience had blinded you to the fact."
"Lying," Ramirez stated, blushing. "Evil. -- Jim Butcher
I can disintegrate a virgin's inhibitions at fifty paces, but I can't last two weeks at a job where I'm wearing a stupid hairnet and a paper hat. -- Jim Butcher
I brought the Beetle to life with a roar. Well. Not really a roar. A Volkswagen Bug doesn't roar. But it sort of growled ... -- Jim Butcher
Bigots see something they expect and then they stop thinking about what is in front of them. It's probably how they got to be bigots in the first place. -- Jim Butcher
I'm trying to be diplomatic. The wisdom of my ass is well-known. If I didn't lip off to them, after shooting my mouth off to faerie queens and Vampire Courts
plural, Courts
demigods and demon lords, they might get their feelings hurt. -- Jim Butcher
Hers was a beauty so pure that it was nearly painful to behold
Athena heading out on a Friday night. -- Jim Butcher
I swear, this stupid town. Why does every hideous supernatural thing that happens happen here? I'm gone for a few months and augh. Be right back. Grssll frrrsl rassle mrrrfl. -- Jim Butcher
Man sees faces. Sees skin. Flags. Membership lists. Files. God sees hearts. -- Jim Butcher
I like to stay cozy with my paranoia, not pass her around to my friends and family. -- Jim Butcher
They get caught up in right and wrong. Or right and left. But none of that stuff matters if people aren't free. Titania -- Jim Butcher
Fear and anger always come hand in hand. Anger is my hiding place from fear, my shield and my sword against it. -- Jim Butcher
It only means what you decide it means. -- Jim Butcher
This whole thing," I said "is going to come down to guessing who isn't what they look like."
"Who is?" Karrin asked, her hands moving surely over the weapon. "Ever. -- Jim Butcher
Belief in a story," Uriel said, "of good confronting evil, of light overcoming darkness, of love transcending hate." He tilted his head. "Isn't that where all faith begins? -- Jim Butcher
But they were doughnuts of darkness. Evil, damned doughnuts, tainted by the spawn of darkness . . . . . which could obviously be redeemed only by passing through the fiery, cleansing inferno of a wizardly digestive tract. -- Jim Butcher
Laughter is good for you. Nine out of ten stand-up comedians recommend laughter in the face of intense stupidity. -- Jim Butcher
It's one of the things that makes us different than they are, Harry. The blood on their hands does not make it right to bloody my own. My choices are measured against my own soul. Not against the stains on theirs. -- Jim Butcher
Your death doesn't belong to me. We flipped a coin. I lost. -- Jim Butcher
It is the prerogative of wizards to be grumpy. It is not, however, the prerogative of freelance consultants who are late on their rent, so instead of saying something smart, I told the woman on the phone, Yes, ma'am. How can I help you today? -- Jim Butcher
The stupid part is that he isn't interested in ... in getting serious. We get along. We have fun together. For him, that's enough. And it's so stupid for me to get hung up on him. -- Jim Butcher
I used the knife.
I saved a child.
I won a war.
God forgive me. -- Jim Butcher
Time to start doing," I whispered. -- Jim Butcher
But you can't go around changing your definition of right and wrong (or smart and stupid) just because doing the wrong thing happens to be really convenient. -- Jim Butcher
Maybe you know the monsters, Martin," Murphy said quietly. "But I know the guy who stops them. And if they don't return the girl, we'll make them regret it." She nodded at me and said, "Let's go. We can watch Dresden kill the bitch. -- Jim Butcher
A good man, almost by definition, would seriously question any decisions he made that led to such terrible consequences for others. Especially if those others trusted him. -- Jim Butcher
I might not have any magic available to me, but that didn't make me any less of a wizard, one of the magi, the wise. That's the true power of a wizard. -- Jim Butcher
If I stay, they'll kill me ... If I go, at least everything that wants me dead won't be taking it personally. -- Jim Butcher
If she were in a race for her life, that roar was the starter pistol. If God were the referee, He had just shouted Go. -- Jim Butcher
From the pain of our failures we learn to be better, stronger, greater than what we were before. -- Jim Butcher
Fear is a part of life. It's a warning mechanism. That's all. It tells you when there's danger around. Its job is to help you survive. Not cripple you into being unable to do it. -- Jim Butcher
I tapped Boz on the shoulder and said, "Hey, gorgeous." His face twisted in complete surprise, turning to stare in blank incomprehension at mine. I winked at him, and whispered, "Boo. -- Jim Butcher
There's more magic in a baby's first giggle than in any firestorm a wizard can conjure up, and don't let anyone tell you any different. -- Jim Butcher
You know how confusing the whole good-evil concept is for me. -- Jim Butcher
There is hinkiness afoot with regard to my, ah, disposition. -- Jim Butcher
The freaking Leanansidhe, deputy of Her Wickedness, with her Nietzsche and Darwin Were Sentimental Pansies outlook on life -- Jim Butcher
I blinked slowly at that notion. "A honeymoon free of your mother-in-law." "Worth more than gold or jewels," Hades said. -- Jim Butcher
It was never too late to learn something. The past is unalterable in any event. The future is the only thing we can change. Learning the lessons of the past is the only way to shape the present and the future. -- Jim Butcher
With a sense of humor like that, you could make a living as a garbage man anywhere in the country. -- Jim Butcher
When people come to the only professional wizard in the Chicago phone book for help, they're one of two things: desperate or smart. Very rarely are they both. -- Jim Butcher
I shied away from that line of thought, lest it bring up too many old memories. -- Jim Butcher
The Blue Beetle was not a clown car," I said severely. "It was a machine of justice. -- Jim Butcher
One can have only as much preparation as he has foresight. -- Jim Butcher
I dealt with the White Council my whole life, so I'm used to being treated like a mushroom - " "Eh?" Ascher asked. "Kept in the dark and fed bullshit," Binder reported calmly. "Ah. -- Jim Butcher
I've always admired your ability to be unilaterally irritating. -- Jim Butcher
Rip her dress off!" Bob shouted. Bob the Skull takes paperback romances very seriously. The next page turned so quickly that he tore the paper a little. Bob is even harder on books than I am.
"That's what I'm talking about!" Bob hollered, as more pages turned. -- Jim Butcher
[Mouse is] with us. The dog is a handicap-assist animal."
The kid lifted his eyebrows.
"My mouth is partially paralyzed," I said. "It makes it hard for me to read. He's here to help me with the big words. Tell me if I'm supposed to push or pull on doors, that kind of thing. -- Jim Butcher