Jim Butcher Quotations

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.

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

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.

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.

Paranoid? Probably. But just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face.

Give it to 'em!" Take 'em down!" First Aleran!" Kick their furry--" Assault formation!

An inferior sense of smell," Marcus said, as if absolutely nothing of significance had happened, "is distinct from being told that one smells unpleasant.

It's all right to be afraid. You just don't let it stop you from doing your job.

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.

Me and polite have never been on close terms.

Nay, but prithee, with sprinkles 'pon it instead," I said solemnly, "and frosting of white.

Those who deal in magic learn to see the world in a slightly differnt light than everybody else.you gain a perspective you had considered before. A way of thinking that would never have occurred to you with out exposure to the things a wizard sees and hears.When you look in to some ones eyes you see them in that other light and for just a second they see you in the same way.

Polka will never die.

I had to smile at the man. I mean, you have to smile at idiots and children.

Of course Evil's afoot. If it had switched to the metric system it'd be up to a meter by now.

Don't mess with a wizard when he's wizarding!

A technicality I'm prepared to hide wildly behind.

This is what it look like when it WORKS?

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.

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?

Sullen monosyllabism, a sure sign of sleep deprivation.

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.

A succubus on the set. Strike that, the health-conscious kid sister made it two… succubuses. Succubusees? Succubi? Stupid Latin correspondence course.

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.

Black Court vampires. I just shortened it some." Ebenezar tsked. "Blampires. That's the problem with you young people. Shortening all the words.

God save me from idealists.

I'm amazing and studly, but I have limits.

All of those faeries and duels and mad queens and so on, and no one quoted old Billy Shakespeare. Not even once.

I don't believe in faeries!

The human mind is not a terribly logical or consistent place.

I mean, we're all going to die. We know that on an intellectual level. We figure it out when we're still fairly young, and it scares us so badly that we convince ourselves we're immortal for more than a decade afterwards.

I parked in front of the Field Museum under a NO PARKING sign. There were a couple of actual spots I could have used, but the drive was even closer. Besides, I found it aesthetically satisfying to defy municipal code.

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.

I was seducing shepherdesses when you weren't a twinkle in your great-grandcestor's eyes. I think I know what I'm doing.

Do you have a little white dress? I've had this deep-seated nurse fantasy about you, Murphy.

I didn't want to believe that killing was deep inside of me. I didn't want to think about the part of me that took a dark joy in gathering all the power it could and using it as I saw fit, everything else be damned. There was power to be had in hatred, too, in anger and in lust, in selfishness and in pride. And I knew that there was some dark corner of me that would enjoy using magic for killing—and then long for more. That was black magic, and it was easy to use. Easy and fun. Like Legos.

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 still can't believe," Michael said, sotto voce, "that you came to the Vampires' Masquerade Ball dressed as a vampire.

There are things you can't walk away from. Not if you want to live with yourself afterward.

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?

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

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.

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.

As far as the Council is concerned, the U.S. Wardens are a bunch of mushrooms." "Eh?" "Kept in the dark and fed on bullshit.

Oh," the girl said, shaking her head. "Don't be so simple. People adore monsters. They fill their songs and stories with them. They define themselves in relation to them. You know what a monster is, young shade? Power. Power and choice. Monsters make choices. Monsters shape the world. Monsters force us to become stronger, smarter, better. They sift the weak from the strong and provide a forge for the steeling of souls. Even as we curse monsters, we admire them. Seek to become them, in some ways." Her eyes became distant. "There are far, far worse things to be than a monster.

The best thing about my faerie godmother is that the creepy just keeps on coming.

Last year in the U.S. alone more than nine hundred thousand people were reported missing and not found... That's out of three hundred million, total population. That breaks down to about one person in three hundred and twenty-five vanishing. Every year.... Maybe it's a coincidence, but it's almost the same loss ratio experienced by herd animals on the African savannah to large predators.

I checked the icebox. The faeries usually brought some sort of food to stock the icebox and the pantry when they cleaned, but they could have mighty odd ideas about what constituted a healthy diet. One time I'd opened the pantry and found nothing but boxes and boxes and boxes of Fruit Loops. I had a near-miss with diabetes, and Thomas, who was never quite sure where the food had come from, declared that I had clearly been driven Fruit Loopy.

I wouldn't burden any decent system of faith by participating in it... I'm not agnostic. Just nonpartisan. Theological Switzerland, that's me.

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" -Harry Dresden

Ease off the martyr throttle.

...as nervous as a bird in a coal mine.

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.

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.

Never let it be said that Harry Dresden is afraid of a dried, dead bug. Creepy or not, I wasn't going to let it ruin my concentration. So I scooped it up with the corner of the phone book and popped it into the middle drawer of my desk. Out of sight, out of mind. So I have a problem with creepy, dead, poisonous things. So sue me.

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.

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

Your face looks like a sack of purple potatoes

Oh, I get it," I said. "You're Evil Harry, lurking inside Good Harry. Right? And you only come out at night?

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.

Well. We’ll just have to hope that this wasn’t a loup-garou, I guess.” “If it was a louper, you’d know,” Bob said wisely. “In the middle of this town, you’d have a dozen people dead every time the full moon came around. What’s going on?” “A dozen people are dying every time the full moon comes around.

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.

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.

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

Science, the largest religion of the twentieth century, had become tarnished by images of exploding space shuttles, crack babies, and a generation of complacent Americans who allowed the television to raise their children. People were looking for something - I think they just didn't know what. And even though they were once again starting to open their eyes to the world of magic and the arcane that had been with them all the while, they still thought I must be some kind of joke.

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.

No matter where you go, there you are. (Uriel to Harry Dresden)

Molly was committing dinner. . .

...It's just one hour. Just one little hour. What could happen in one hour?

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.

Being here? With you? I've met my subconscious, and he's not that sick.

I put it down to the paranoia of advancing age. It isn't like I'm all that old or anything, especially for a wizard, but age is always advancing and I'm fairly sure it's up to no good.

I once lost five years listening to a Pink Floyd album.

If you can't manage courtesy, try silence.

There is hinkiness afoot with regard to my, ah, disposition.

Discretion is the better part of not getting exsanguinated.

Seedy wasn't a fair description for the place, because seeds imply eventual regrowth and renewal.

It would require a singularly stupid man to go hang around in narrow tunnels and cramped spaces alongside a threat like that. "And I, Harry Dresden, am that man," I stated.

You're dead, son. Cheer is contraindicated.

My gast was pretty well flabbered.

Screw up my life?" He stared at me for a second and then said, deadpan, "I'm a five-foot-three, thirty-seven-year-old, single, Jewish medical examiner who needs to pick up his lederhosen from the dry cleaners so that he can play in a one-man polka band at Oktoberfest tomorrow." He pushed up his glasses with his forefinger, folded his arms, and said, "Do your worst.

The mad rarely know that they are mad. It's the rest of the world, I think, that seems insane to them.

I sometimes give myself excellent advice. Occasionally, I even listen to it.

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.

Got to die of something," Giraldi observed. "Might as well put back a few pints while you wait to see what it is.

Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of trauma, I will fear no concussion.

the Female Once-Over--a process by which one woman creates a detailed profile of another woman based upon about a million subtle details of clothing, jewelry, makeup, and body type, and then decides how much of a social threat she might be. Men have a parallel process, but it's binary: Does he have beer? If yes, will he share with me?

...The next time I opened my eyes, I was in the morgue. This, all by itself, is enough to really ruin your day. I was lying on the examining table, and Butters, complete with his surgical gown and his tray of autopsy instruments, stood over me. 'I'm not dead!' I sputtered. 'I'm not dead!' - Harry Dresden, Death Masks, Jim Butcher

Right,' Thomas said. 'Where are we headed?' 'To where they treat me like royalty,' I said. 'We're going to Burger King?' I rubbed the heel of my hand against my forehead and spelled fratricide in a subvocal mutter, but I had to spell out temporary insanity and justifiable homicide, too, before I calmed down enough to speak politely. 'Just take a left and drive. Please.' 'Well,' Thomas said, grinning, 'since you said 'please' - Thomas Raith & Harry Dresden, Small Favor, Jim Butcher

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

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.

At the moment I was mad enough to chew up nails and spit out paper clips.

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.

Wait. You don't understand. I just wanted it to stop. Wanted the hurting to stop." I smoothed a bloodied lock of hair from her eyes and felt very tired as I said, "The only people who never hurt are dead." The light died out of her eyes, her breath slowing. She whispered, barely audible, "I don't understand." I answered, "I don't either." A tear slid from her eye and mixed with the blood. Then she died.

It rained toads the day the White Council came to town.

We're all of us equally naked before the jaws of pain.

Billy squinted at me. "Why are you letting them go?" "Because they're real." "How do you know?" "The one I was holding crapped on my hand.

Children are a precious gift, but they belong to no one but themselves. They are only lent us a little while.

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.