Jim Butcher quotes:

You are a drug dealer. To tiny faeries. Shame."Sanya to Dresden"

Star Trek?" I asked herReally?" "What?" she demanded, bending unnaturally black eyebrows togetherThere are two kinds of people in the universe, Molly," I saidStar Trek fans and Star Wars fans. This is shocking." She sniffedThis is the post-nerd-closet world, Harry. It's okay to like both." "Blasphemy and lies," I said."

You want to play head games?" Molly snarled, her blue eyes blazingLet's go."

I'm sure that you psychotic necro-wannabes with delusions of godhood are all about sharing with your fellow maniacs.

That woman, Grimm said quietly, drives me quite insane.Kettle grunted. Why'd you marry her, then?

Molly blinked, then looked at Thomas and said, "Wait a minute.... We're his flunkies.""You, may be," Thomas said, sneeringI'm his thug. I'm way higher than a flunky.""You are high if you think I'm taking any orders from you," Molly said tartly."

If your new boss wanted yo on the island, wouldn't she just have told you to go there?" Thomas asked."Seems like," I saidTaking her orders is pretty much my job now."Molly snorted softly."Maybe I'll grow into it," I saidYou don't know."Thomas snorted softly."

Molly was arrested. Possession." I blinked at himShe was possessed?"

I told you," Molly said, never looking toward meIt's in the past. Leave it there.""You listening to my head, kiddo?"Her mouth twitchedOnly when I want to hear the roar of the ocean."

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.

Everybody should get to make a living with their passion.

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.

Monsters are born of pain, and grief, and loss, and anger. Your heart is full of them.--And?And it makes you vulnerable.

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.

Lacuna peered at my shirtAer-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?"

Bob," I said over my shoulderTell her it's me.""Can't," Bob said in a dreamy toneBoobs."

The cabin door swung open and Molly belly-crawled onto the deck until she could see meWho started shooting at us?""Bad guys!" I cringed as another round hit the side of the boat and peppered me with wooden splintersObviously!"

There were quick footsteps beside me, and then Molly pressed her back to mineYou take that side!" she saidI'll take this one!"DJ Molly C lifted both of her wands and turned the battle chaos to eleven."

You're such a cynic," Molly said."I think cynics are playful and cute."

Molly was committing dinner. . ."

You're one hell of a woman, Molly," I saidThank you."

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."

They'd paid some madman who thought he was a decorator a lot of money to make the place look hip and unique. Maybe it's my lack of fashion sense talking, but I thought they should have held out for one of these gorillas who has learned to paint. The results would have been of similar quality, and they could have paid in fresh produce."

About thirty feet from the door, Molly abruptly stopped in her tracks and said, "Harry."I paused and looked back at her.Her eyes were wide. She said, "I sense..."I narrowed my eyesSay it. You know you want to say it.""It is not a disturbance in the Force, she said, her voice half-exasperated."

The fire of my tribulations had not simply been pain to be endured. It had been an agent of transformation. After all that I'd been through, I'd changed. Not for the worse, I was pretty sure--at least not yet. But only a moron or a freaking lunatic could have faced the things I had and remained unfazed by them.

And from the perspective of those in need, that extra quarter of a million bucks your material person spent on the prestige addition for his house looks like an awful lot of lifesaving food and medicine that could have existed if the jerk with the big house in the suburbs hadn't blown it all to artificially inflate his sociogeographic penis.

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."

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.

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."

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!"

Love this job," Sanya murmuredJust 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."

It turns out that Molly wasn't her mother's daughter in that respect. Charity was like the MacGuyver of the kitchen. She could whip up a five-course meal for twelve from an egg, two spaghetti noodles, some household chemicals, and a stick of chewing gum. Molly ...Molly once burned my egg. My boiled egg. I don't know how."

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

And thrice do I say to thee...bite me.

No rest for the wicked, Bob, and that means that we can't slack off either, or they'll outwork us.

It turns out that Molly wasn't her mother's daughter in that respect. Charity was like the MacGuyver of the kitchen. She could whip up a five-course meal for twelve from an egg, two spaghetti noodles, some household chemicals, and a stick of chewing gum. Molly ... Molly once burned my egg. My boiled egg. I don't know how.

Thomas has the kind of whiter-than-white boyish grin that makes women's panties spontaneously evaporate.

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?

Sticks and stones and small caliber bullets may break my bones... Words will never, et cetera.

Caring about someone isn't complicated. It isn't easy. But it isn't complicated, either. Kinda like lifting the engine block out of a car.

Chili dogs, funnel cakes, fried bread, majorly greasy pizza, candy apples, ye gods. Evil food smells amazing -- which is either proof that there is a Satan or some equivalent out there, or that the Almighty doesn't actually want everyone to eat organic tofu all the time. I can't decide.

Karrin Murphy led the charge, and Sanya and I tried to keep up. She went through that sea of foes like a little speedboat, her enemies spun and tossed and turned and disoriented in her wake. Sanya and I hacked our way through stunned foes, pushing and chopping with unsophisticated brutality-and that big Russian lunatic just kept laughing the whole time.

There's always, always a choice. My options might really, truly suck, but that doesn't mean there isn't a choice.

Karrin, eh?" Thomas asked. I nodded. "She's real serious about order. A man dying, she can understand. A man coming back. That's different." "Isn't she Catholic?" Thomas asked. "Don't they have a guy?

Molly blinked, then looked at Thomas and said, "Wait a minute.... We're his flunkies." "You, may be," Thomas said, sneering. "I'm his thug. I'm way higher than a flunky." "You are high if you think I'm taking any orders from you," Molly said tartly.

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.

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.

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?

If you go to your death rather than do everything you might to prevent what is happening, you are merely committing suicide and trying to make yourself feel better about it. That is the act of a coward. It is beneath contempt.

Mort drove one of those little hybrid cars that, when not running on gasoline, was fueled by idealism. It was made out of crepe paper and duct tape and boasted a computer system that looked like it could have run the NYSE and NORAD, with enough attention left over to play tic-tac-toe. Or possibly Global Thermonuclear War.

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.

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.

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.

A little humiliation and ego deflation, now and then, is good for apprentices. Mine sighed miserably.

You don't go walking into the proverbial lion's den lightly. You start with a good breakfast.

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.

People love dogs. You can never go wrong adding a dog to the story.

Likest thou jelly within thy doughnut?

He's Gandalf on crack and an IV of Red Bull, with a big leather coat and a .44 revolver in his pocket.

Yeah, but I forgot to take my George Orwell-shaped multivitamins along with my breakfast bowl of Big Brother Os this morning.

In the name of the Pizza Lord. Charge!

Laugh whenever you can. Keeps you from killing yourself when things are bad. That and vodka.

Everyone is down on pain, because they forget something important about it: Pain is for the living. Only the dead don't feel it. (Harry Dresden)

Laughter is good for you. Nine out of ten stand-up comedians recommend laughter in the face of intense stupidity.

We are not going to die." Butters stared up at me, pale, his eyes terrified. "We're not?" No. And do you know why?" He shook his head. "Because Thomas is too pretty to die. And because I'm too stubborn to die." I hauled on the shirt even harder. "And most of all because tomorrow is Oktoberfest, Butters, and polka will never die.

Paranoia is a survival trait when you run in my circles. It gives you something to do in your spare time, coming up with solutions to ridiculous problems that aren't ever going to happen. Except when one of them does, at which point you feel way too vindicated. - Harry Dresden, Changes, Jim Butcher

I don't believe in faeries!

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.

Harry Dresden. Saving the world, one act of random destruction at a time.

Ack!" I said. Fearless master of the witty dialogue, that's me.

See? This is why I'm not religious. I couldn't possibly keep my mouth shut long enough to get along with everyone else.

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.

I'd made the vampire cry. Great. I felt like a real superhero. Harry Dresden, breaker of monsters' hearts.

Something like this will test you like nothing else," Mac said. "You're going to find out who you are, Harry. You're going to find out which principles you'll stand by to your death--and which lines you'll cross." He took my empty glass away and said, "You're heading into the badlands. It'll be easy to get lost.

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.

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....

There aren't any magical words, really. Words just hold the magic.

Magic. It can get a guy killed.

I found him in a Dumpster one day when he was a kitten and he promptly adopted me. Despite my struggles, Mister had been an understanding soul, and I eventually came to realize that I was a part of his little family, and by his gracious consent was allowed to remain in his apartment. Cats. Go figure.

If you make some comment even obliquely alluding to menstruation or menopause and its effect on my judgment," Murphy interrupted, "I will break your arm in eleven places.

Murphy had found a spot on the street, which made me wonder if she didn't have some kind of magical talent after all. Only some kind of precognitive ESP could have gotten us a parking space on the street, in the shadow of a building, with both of us in sight of the apartment building's entrance.

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.

When everything goes to hell, the people who stand by you without flinching - they are your family.

Rain was coming down in sheets. I could hear it, on the concrete outside and on the old building above me. It creaked and swayed in the spring thunderstorm and the wind, timbers gently flexing, wise enough with age to give a little, rather than put up stubborn resistance until they broke. I could probably stand to learn something from that.

Courage is about learning how to function despite the fear, to put aside your instincts to run or give in completely to the anger born from fear. Courage is about using your brain and your heart when every cell of your body is screaming at your to fight or flee - and then following through on what you believe is the right thing to do.

Hope is a force of nature. Don't let anyone tell you different.

The distinction between good and evil is meaningless if one does not have the freedom to choose between them.

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?

Am I going to be able to provide a real home for her, man? An education? A real life? What's her college application going to look like: 'Raised on Spooky Island by wizard with GED, please help'?

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.

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.

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.

I'm not a philosopher, Harry," [Michael] said. "But here's something for you to think about, at least. What goes around comes around. And sometimes you get what's coming around." He paused for a moment, frowning faintly, pursing his lips. "And sometimes you are what's coming around.

You know how confusing the whole good-evil concept is for me.

I love watching him think," Maeve told Lily. "You can almost hear that poor little hamster running and running on its wheel.

I died. I died and someone made a clerical error and I am in Heaven.

Many things are not as they seem: The worst things in life never are.

Bring it, Darth Bathrobe!

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.

You rush a miracle worker, you get lousy miracles!

So. You get handed a holy sword by an archangel, told to go fight the forces of evil, and you somehow remain an atheist. Is that what you're saying?

Life would be unbearably dull if we had answers to all our questions.

Time after time, history demonstrates that when people don't want to believe something, they have enormous skills of ignoring it altogether.

We have now left Reason and Sanity Junction. Next stop, Looneyville.

I ask people impertinent questions. Hopefully turning up pertinent answers.

A pure heart and mind only takes you so far - sooner or later the hormones have their say, too.

Passion has overthrown tyrants and freed prisoners and slaves. Passion has brought justice where there was savagery. Passion has created freedom where there was nothing but fear. Passion has helped souls rise from the ashes of their horrible lives and build something better, stronger, more beautiful.

You don't explain to the janitorial staff how your company is a part of a sinister organization with goals of global infiltration and control. You just tell them to clean the floor.

Smiling always seems to annoy people more than actually insulting them. Or maybe I just have an annoying smile.

I've been a young man. 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.

This is ridiculous. I look like the Games Workshop version of a Jedi Knight.

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 of my life must be really low-budget.

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.

Murphy hung up and I said, to the still-open line, "Hey, if you've got someone watching my place, could you call the cops if anyone tries to steal my Star Wars poster? It's an original." Then I vindictively hung up on the FBI. It made my inner child happy.

My friend is going to save a little girl from monsters. I am going with him. That's what friends do.

Answer my question, Dresden,' Nicodemus growled. 'What is that?' 'A precaution against getting stuck in deep snow,' I said. 'He's training to be a Saint Bernard.' 'Excuse me?' Nicodemus said. I mimed covering one of Mouse's ears with my hand and stage-whispered, 'Don't tell him that they don't actually carry kegs of booze on their collars. Break his little heart.