Top 497 Quotes & Sayings by Jim Butcher - Page 5

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

Pain does two things: It teaches you, tells you that you're alive. Then it passes away and leaves you changed. It leaves you wiser, sometimes. Sometimes it leaves you stronger. Either way, pain leaves its mark, and everything important that will ever happen to you in life is going to involve it in one degree or another.

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

When you die, do you want to feel ashamed of what you've done with your life? Feel ashamed of what your life meant?

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?

Lies. Mab cannot change who you are.

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.

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.

If I was on the road to Hell, at least I was going in style.

I do not need the written code of a spiritual belief to act like a decent human being.

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

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

You killed my dog! Get your affairs in order.

The next time you interfere with me, more than smoke will interfere with you.

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.

I admit," Morgan said with another withering look, "it's no donut.

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.

In my judgment, my buildings are less likely to burn to the ground during one of your visits if you are disoriented from being treated like a sultan.

Fading light means more than just the end of another day. Night is when terrible things emerge from their sleep and seek soft flesh and hot blood.

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

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?

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

I will make Maggie safe. If the world burns because of that then so be it. Me and the kid will roast some marshmallows.

I can't be under arrest now... I don't have time.

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.

Mister Dresden is a diplomatically challenged individual. He should be in a shelter for the tactless.

My brother the vampire, whose kiss was a slow death sentence, had a stable and loving relationship with a girl who was crazy about him. By contrast, I could barely talk to a woman, at least about anything pertaining to a relationship. Given that my only long-term girlfriends had faked their own death, died, and broken free of enslaving enchantments to end the relationship, the empirical evidence seemed to indicate that he knew something I didn't. Keep your life tonight, Harry. Complicate it tomorrow.

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

Karrin smiled faintly and shook her head. "He always said you knew ghosts. You're sure it was really him?" Mort eyed her. "Me and everyone else, yeah." Karrin scowled and stared into the middle distance. Mort frowned and then his expression softened. "You didn't want it to be his ghost. Did you?" Murphy shook her head slowly, but said nothing. "You needed everyone to be wrong about it. Because if it really was his ghost," Mort said, "it means that he really is dead." Murphy's face...just crumpled. Her eyes overflowed and she bowed her head. Her body shook in silence.

Love is another kind of power, which shouldn't surprise you. Magic comes from emotions, among other things.

I always considered myself a loner. I mean, not like a poor-me, Byron-esque, I-should-have-brought-a-swimming-buddy loner. I mean the sort of person who doesn’t feel too upset about the prospect of a weekend spent seeing no one, and reading good books on the couch. It wasn’t like I was a people hater or anything. I enjoyed activities and the company of friends. But they were a side dish. I always thought I would be happy without them.

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.

A pair of dolphins swept by us in the water, flicking their heads out to get a look at us as they went. One of them made a chittering sound that wasn't very melodic. The other twitched its tail and splashed a little water our way, all in good fun. They weren't the attractive Flipper kind of dolphins. They were regular dolphins that aren't as pretty and don't get cast on television. Maybe they just refused to sell out and see a plastic surgeon. I held up a fist to them. Represent.

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

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.

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.

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.

You can't abandon life just because it's scary, and just because you get hurt.

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

We're all so damned fragile.

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

[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 rea. 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.

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.

Then you know that Sam was the true hero of the tale,' Sayna said. 'That he faced far greater and more terrible foes than he ever should have had to face, and did so with courage. That he went alone into a black and terrible land, stormed a dark fortress, and resisted the most terrible temptation of his world for the sake of the friend he loved. That in the end, it was his actions and his actions alone that made it possible for light to overcome darkness.

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

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

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

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.

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.

Life is precious, fragile, fleeting - and Murphy's life was one of my favorites.

...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.

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.

Whatever you do, do it for love. If you keep to that, your path will never wander so far from the light that you can never return.

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

Sheep can befriend a hungry wolf only for briefly.

I don't have a muse. I have a mortgage.

My faith protects me. My Kevlar helps.

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

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.

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.