Jim Butcher Quotations | Page 4

There’s nothing that makes you more insane than family. Or more happy. Or more exasperated. Or more . . . secure.

Knowledge is the ultimate weapon. It always has been.

Star Trek?” I asked her. “Really?” “What?” she demanded, bending unnaturally black eyebrows together. “There are two kinds of people in the universe, Molly,” I said. “Star Trek fans and Star Wars fans. This is shocking.” She sniffed. “This is the post-nerd-closet world, Harry. It’s okay to like both.” “Blasphemy and lies,” I said.

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

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.

Even in winter, the cold isn't always bitter, and not every day is cruel.

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

Anger is just anger. It isn't good. It isn't bad. It just is. What you do with it is what matters. It's like anything else. You can use it to build or to destroy. You just have to make the choice.

Likest thou jelly within thy doughnut?

Alone. It's one of those small words that means entirely too much. Like fear. Or trust.

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.

One can have only as much preparation as he has foresight.

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.

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 can't plan for everything or you never get started in the first place.

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

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.

As a whole, people suck. But a person can be extraordinary

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.

Pretty please. With sugar.

Over the course of many encounters and many years, I have successfully developed a standard operating procedure for dealing with big, nasty monsters. Run away.

People always equate beauty with good, but it just ain't so.

I like dogs. They give Mister something to snack on.

A bunch of people are gonna be mad at me, I’ve got some kind of medical issue that’s going to kill me in a while if I don’t deal with it, oh, and the island’s blowing up tomorrow and taking a whole lot of the country with it if I don’t fix it.” Thomas gave me a steady look. “So,” he said. “Same old, same old.

...the Stone Table [was] a place that served as the OK Corral for the Faerie Courts when they decided to engage in diplomacy by means of murdering anyone on the other team.

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.

Not that I was worried about anyone stealing my car. I once had a car thief offer to get me something better for a sweetheart rate.

Could a man's heart, his soul, perish and yet leave him walking and talking as if alive?

Yeah, they look great, but that isn't a fantasy come true, Harry. That's a wood chipper in Playboy bunny clothing.

Wait. You work for me?" "I prefer to think of it as managing your incompetence.

I like to think of it less as embezzling and more as an involuntary goodwill contribution.

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.

Maybe,” he said in a slow, rural drawl, “you could explain to me why I found you in the middle of an orgy.” “Well,” I said, “if you’re going to be in an orgy, the middle is the best spot, isn’t it.

He wasn't evil as much as magnificently innocent of any kind of morality.

Even a broken clock gets it right occasionally.

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?

Not gonna bind ya or break ya, old spirit. Just gonna kick your ass up between your ears.

The door burst open. Murphy came through it, her eyes living flames of azure blue, her hair a golden coronet around her. She held a blazing sword in her hand and she shone so bright and beautiful and terrifying in her anger that it was hard to see. The Sight, I realized, dimly. I was seeing her for who she was.

‎It isn't enough to stand up and fight darkness. You've got to stand apart from it, too. You've got to be different from it.

Everybody should get to make a living with their passion.

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?

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.

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.

The U.S. isn't a perfect place, but it's better than most people have managed to come up with. And all my stuff is there.

in McAnally's pub and grill, there aren't any service people. According to Mac, if you can't get up and walk over to pick up your own order, you don't need to be there at all.

I got the sneaking suspicion that the vampire was a couple of Peeps short of an Easter basket.

When you do something stupid and die, it's pathetic," I said. "When you do something stupid and survive it, then you get to call it impressive or heroic.

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...

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.

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.

It always shocked me how you could understand so many things and be such a complete idiot about so many others.

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.

Some things just aren't meant to go together. Things like oil and water. Orange juice and toothpaste.

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.

My main source for faith-based stuff is mostly the Bible, and a childhood with a much, much higher-than-median exposure to theological thought.

Isana laughed. "And you, lady? Are you a woman of conscience or of ambition?" The lady smiled. "That's a question rarely asked here at court." "And why is that?" "Because a woman of conscience would tell you that she is a person of conscience. A woman of ambition would tell you that she is a person of conscience—only much more convincingly.

When I started, I was pretty sure I was going to be writing some goofy little wizard novels that might make me some part-time money and would hopefully lead to something I could do better.

Pain is to be endured. It ends or it does not.

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?

Knowledge is your weapon...Kill them with it.

For me chivalry isn't dead; it's an involuntary reflex.

Hers was a beauty so pure that it was nearly painful to behold--Athena heading out on a Friday night.

I’ve often wished that I had some suave and socially acceptable hobby that I could fall back on in times like this. You know, play the violin (or was it the viola) like Sherlock Holmes, or maybe twiddle away on the pipe organ like the Disney version of Captain Nemo. But I don’t. I’m sort of the arcane equivalent of a classic computer geek. I do magic, in one form or another, and that’s pretty much it. I really need to get a life, one of these days

Unicorns," I said. "Very dangerous. You go first.

So?" Bob said. "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.

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

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.

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.

I put the ick in magic.

You must be Warden Ramirez." This is the part where I got nervous. Ramirez loved women. Ramirez never shut up about women. Well, he never shut up about anything in general, but he'd go on and on about various conquests and feats of sexual athleticism and— "A virgin?" Lara blurted. Lara blurted. She turned her head to me, grey eyes several shades paler than they had been, and very wide. "Really, Harry, I'm not sure what to say. Is he a present?

You suck. You suck diseased moose wang, Marcone.

Have you ever been approached by a grim-looking man, carrying a naked sword with a blade about ten miles long in his hand, in the middle of the night, beneath the stars on the shores of Lake Michigan? If you have, seek professional help. If you have not, then believe you me, it can scare the bejeezus out of you.

My faith protects me. My Kevlar helps.

Men plan. Fate Laughs. Guis Alera, First Lord

Lies. Mab cannot change who you are.

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.

Molly was committing dinner by that time, aided and abetted by Sanya, who seemed to take some kind of grim Russian delight in watching train wrecks in progress.

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.

It doesn't make you a monster to want, she said, her voice very gentle. It's what you do with it that matters.

Better safe than exsanguinated.

Here there be monster." Bob whispered, half hysterically. "Run! Run already!

Because even if they are doing something immoral, I'd be an idiot to start criticizing them for it if I wasn't perfect myself. Smoking is self-destructive. Drinking is self-destructive. Losing your temper and yelling at people is wrong. Lying is wrong. Cheating is wrong. Stealing is wrong. But people do that stuff all the time. Soon as I figure out how to be a perfect human being, then I'm qualified to go lecture other people about how they live their lives.

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.

Knight takes Knight,” I called into the cloudy night air. “Check.

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.

He’s being held prisoner on a ceramic-lined cookie sheet in the oven,” Thomas said. “I figured he couldn’t jigger his way out of a bunch of steel, and it would give him something to think about before we start asking questions.” “That’s an awful thing to do to one of the Little Folk, man,” I said. “I’m planning to start making a pie in front of him.” “Nice.” “Thank you.

You think this is going to work? This peaceful summit thing?” “Sure,” I said. After a second, I added, “Probably.” “Probably?” “Maybe,” I said. “We’re down to maybe now?” I shrugged. “We’ll see.

Sometimes it isn't easy to be sane, smart, and responsible. Sometimes it sucks. Sucks wang. Camel wang. But that doesn't turn wrong into right or stupid into smart.

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!

Thank God for imminent doomsday.

All right, you primitive screwheads. Listen up. I'm Harry Dresden. I'm the new Winter Knight.

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?

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.

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.

Troubleshooters?" Michael asked. "When there's trouble," I told him, "they shoot it.

Erlking,” I told her. “Big-time bad guy. Wants to eat me.” “Why?” she asked. “Well. I met him,” I said.

...you look like you fell out of a crazy tree and hit every branch on the way down.

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.

Demonreach only wants Harry to see what's going on." "Why doesn't it just marry him?" Thomas muttered under his breath. "It sort of did," I said. "My brother the... geosexual?

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.