Jim Butcher Quotes

I snagged a golden paper crown from one of the bags, and idly joined it into a circle and put it on my head. Susan blinked at me and let out a brief laugh. 'I am' I intoned with an imperious narrowing of my eyes, 'the burger king. ~ 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

I mean, a lot of teenage guys fail in their first relationships.
Not many of them murder the girl involved. ~ Jim Butcher

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

There is the world that should be and the world that is. We live in one and must create the other. ~ 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

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

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. ~ Jim Butcher

Does it hurt to be as suave as you, boss?" "It's agonizing." "Looks it. ~ Jim Butcher

There are many things you have never done," Rowl responded. "To be frightened of them is of no use to you. ~ Jim Butcher

- Did you really save the world ? ...
- Mostly I was saving my own ass. Just happend that the world was in the same spot. ~ 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

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

Inari screamed and swung her stake, but her Buffy impersonation wasn't any better than mine. ~ Jim Butcher

So we get a plan," I said. "Any suggestions?"
"Blow up the building," Kincaid said without looking up. "That works good for vampires. Then soak what's left in gasoline. Set it on fire. Then blow it all up again."
"For future reference, I was sort of hoping for a suggestion that didn't sound like it came from that Bolshevik Muppet with all the dynamite. ~ Jim Butcher

I kicked the door open, staff held ready to fight, and shouted, And I'm all outta bubble gum! ~ Jim Butcher

There's a fine line between audacity and idiocy. ~ Jim Butcher

The screen came up to light again, showing a devastated section of the city grid. No, not decimated. Had that part of the city been decimated, one out of every ten buildings would be destroyed. That's what decimated means. Personally, I think some early-years, respected television personality got decimated and devastated confused at some point, and no one wanted to point it out to him, so everyone started using them interchangeably. But dammit, words mean what they mean, even if everyone thinks they ought to mean something else. ~ Jim Butcher

So many terrible things are done for love," Mab's voice said. "For love will men mutilate themselves and murder rivals. For love will even a peaceful man go to war. For love, man will destroy himself, and that right willingly. ~ Jim Butcher

It would only take one dummy to kill us all, and we had four hundred and ninety-nine to spare. ~ Jim Butcher

Bad things are inside everyone. I don't care how gentle or holy or sincere or dedicated you are. There are bad things in there. Lust. Greed. Violence. You don't need a wicked queen to make that happen. That's a part of everyone. Some more, some less, but it's always there. ~ Jim Butcher

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

Tiny, but fierce! ~ 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 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

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

You learn very quickly not to make mistakes given the correct incentive to avoid them. ~ 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

Molly, you are a good person. Don't let anyone take that away from you. Not even yourself. ~ Jim Butcher

Five white candles surrounded my summoning circle, the points of an invisible pentacle. White for protection. And because they're the cheapest color at Wal-Mart. ~ 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

It didn't smell so great, and pizza boxes and empty Coke cans had overflowed the trash can and spilled over a significant portion of the kitchen floor. You could barely walk without stepping on clothing that needed to be washed. My furniture was covered with scribbled-on papers and discarded pens and pencils. ~ Jim Butcher

We've both got into the blue beetle. He got into the red door, I got into the white one. ~ 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

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

I lunged, low and quick, and drove about a foot of cold steel into his danglies. Hey, I don't care what kind of fearie or mortal or hideous creature you are. If you've got danglies, and can loose them, that's the kind of sight that makes you reconsider the possible genitalia-related ramifications of your actions real damned quick. ~ Jim Butcher

No one just starts giggling and wearing black and signs up to become a villainous monster. How the hell do you think it happens? It happens to people. Just people. They make questionable choices, for what might be very good reasons. They make choice after choice, and none of them is slaughtering roomfuls of saints, or murdering hundreds of baby seals, or rubber-room irrational. But it adds up. And then one day they look around and realized that they're so far over the line that they can't remember where it was. ~ 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

Thank God for wisecracks. ~ Jim Butcher

False gods!" she cried, her blue eyes blazing as she stared at the Red King and the Lords of Outer Night. "Pretenders! Usurpers of truth! Destroyers of faith, of families, of lives, of children! For your crimes against the Mayans, against the peoples of the world, now will you answer! Your time has come! Face judgment Almighty! ~ Jim Butcher

You're supposed to be a spirit of intellect. I don't understand why you're obsessed with sex."
Bob's voice got defensive. "It's an academic interest, Harry."
"Oh yeah? Well maybe I don't think it's fair to let your academia go peeping in other people's houses."
"Wait a minute. My academia doesn't just peep -"
I held up a hand. "Save it. I don't want to hear it."
He grunted. "You're trivializing what getting out for a bit means to me, Harry. You're insulting my masculinity."
"Bob," I said, "you're a skull . You don't have any masculinity to insult."
"Oh yeah?" Bob challenged me. "Pot kettle black, Harry! Have you gotten a date yet? Huh? Most men have something better to do in the middle of the night than play with their chemistry sets. ~ Jim Butcher

I mean, when you think about it, jet travel is pretty freaking remarkable. You get in a plane, it defies the gravity of an entire planet by exploiting a loophole with air pressure, and it flies across distances that would take months or years to cross by any means of travel that has been significant for more than a century or three. You hurtle above the earth at enough speed to kill you instantly should you bump into something, and you can only breathe because someone built you a really good tin can that has seams tight enough to hold in a decent amount of air. Hundreds of millions of man-hours of work and struggle and research, blood, sweat, tears, and lives have gone into the history of air travel, and it has totally revolutionized the face of our planet and societies. But get on any flight in the country, and I absolutely promise you that you will find someone who, in the face of all that incredible achievement, will be willing to complain about the drinks. The drinks, people. ~ 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 have a monster under my bed, and it's Mouse. ~ Jim Butcher

Like I said, magic comes from life, and especially from emotions. They're a source of the same intangible energy that everyone can feel when an autumn moon rises and fills you with a sudden sense of bone-deep excitement, or when the first warm breeze of spring rushes past your face, full of the scents of life, and drowns you in a sudden flood of unreasoning joy. The passion of mighty music that brings tears to your eyes, and the raw, bubbling, infectious laughter of small children at play, the bellowing power of a stadium full of football fans shouting "Hey!" in time to that damned song - they're all charged with magic.

My magic comes from the same places. And maybe from darker places than that. Fear is an emotion, too. So is rage. So is lust. And madness. I'm not a particularly good person. I'm no Charles Manson or anything, but I'm not going to be up for canonization either. Though in the past, I think maybe I was a better person than I am today. In the past I hadn't seen so many people hurt and killed and terrorized by the same kind of power that damn well should have been making the world a nicer place, or at the least staying the hell away from it. I hadn't made so many mistakes back then, so many shortsighted decisions, some of which had cost people their lives. I had been sure of myself. I had been whole. ~ Jim Butcher

Ignorance is more than bliss, it's freaking orgasmic ecstacy! ~ Jim Butcher

Raith smiled. "There. You already feel yourself weakening. I've taken thousands like you, lovely child. Taken them and broken them. There was nothing they could do. There is nothing you can do. You were made to feel desire. I was made to use it against you. It is the natural cycle. Life and death. Mating and death. Predator and Prey."
Raith leaned closer with each word, and brushed his lips against Murphy's throat as he spoke. "Born mortal. Born weak. And easily taken."
...
"And that's only a taste, child. When you know what it is to be truly taken later this night, you will understand that your life ended the moment I wanted you. ~ 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

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

But... my choices haven't always been very good," I said.
"Whose have?" he asked. ~ Jim Butcher

Martin was alphabetizing my bookshelves. They used to kill men for sacrilege like that. ~ Jim Butcher

Thomas looked like someone's painting of the forgotten Greek god of body cologne. He had long hair so dark that light itself could not escape it, and even fresh from the shower it was starting to curl. His eyes were the color of thunderclouds, and he never did a single moment of exercise to earn the gratuitous amount of ripple in his musculature. He was wearing jeans and no shirt
his standard household uniform. I once saw him answer the door to speak to a female missionary in the same outfit, and she'd assaulted him in a cloud of forgotten copies of The Watchtower. The tooth marks she left had been interesting. ~ Jim Butcher

I think that men ought to treat women like something other than weaker men with breasts. ~ 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

Pansy," Murphy sneered.
Thomas leered at her. "You make my stamen tingle when you talk like that, Sergeant. ~ Jim Butcher

The words first. Damned near everything begins with words.
"I am," I breathed, and suddenly the ice was clear of my mouth.
"I am Harry ... " I panted, and the pain redoubled.
And I laughed. As if some freak who never loved enough to know loss could tell me about pain. ~ Jim Butcher

Of course cats [can see ghosts]. As far as I can tell, all cats. But they aren't terribly impressed with the fact that we're dead and still present. ~ Jim Butcher

And I'm the tool," I muttered. Then I thought about it, sighed, and shook my head. "One day," I told myself, "one brave and magnificent day, I will actually be cool. ~ Jim Butcher

By the time I got home, it was after two o'clock in the morning. The ~ 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

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

All hospital emergency rooms have the same feel to them. They're all decorated in the same dull, muted tones and softened edges, which are meant to be comforting and aren't. They all have the same smell too: one part tangy antiseptics, one part cool dispassion, one part anxiety, and one part naked fear. They ~ 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

I put the ick in magic. ~ 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

We're all imaginary friends to one another, ~ 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

That's kind of awesome," I said. "Children frequently are," Michael said. ~ 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

Worry is fear in disguise. ~ Jim Butcher

And since when had I become the guy that things happened to ten years ago? ~ Jim Butcher

I scowled. "Murphy's made of muscle. You just can't see it under the suit and the body armor," I said. "And she hasn't gotten lucky with me either." Ascher stared at me for a second and blinked slowly. "You're . . . serious, aren't you?" "We're complicated," I said. "Because you're twitchy?" "And she's had a couple of divorces. And her ex-boyfriend kind of shot me." "What?" "I asked him to," I said hurriedly. "What? ~ Jim Butcher

Same result, only I'd be steam-cooked instead of roasted. ~ Jim Butcher

There was a small stone in her palm, a deep blue opal. I leaned a little closer, eyeing it. It was set on a silver stud - an earring.
"It should suffice to contain the parasite for what time remains," Mab said. "Put it on."
"My ears aren't pierced," I objected.
Mab arched an eyebrow. "Are you the Winter Knight or some sort of puling child?"
I scowled at her. "Come over here and say that."
At that, Mab calmly stepped onto the shore of Demonreach, until her toes were almost touching mine. She was several inches over six feet tall, and barely had to reach up to take my earlobe in her fingers.
"Wait," I said. "Wait."
She paused.
"The left one."
Mab tilted her head. "Why?"
"It's ... Look, it's a mortal thing. Just do the left one, okay?"
She exhaled briefly through her nose. Then she shook her head and changed ears. ~ Jim Butcher

The Wardens put on their own epic production of Fahrenheit 452," Bob said. "They spent about twenty years finding and destroying copies. ~ Jim Butcher

Sometimes I forget how much I like riding the bike."
Most chicks do," I said. "Roar of the engine and so on."
Murphy's blue eyes glittered with annoyance and anticipation. "Pig. You really enjoy dropping all women together in the same demographic, don't you?"
It's not my fault all women like motorcycles, Murph. They're basically huge vibrators. With wheels. ~ Jim Butcher

We all have our demons. ~ Jim Butcher

There was a roar from the shadow-tiger mask around the Harley, and Murphy swept up alongside the boat. I leapt down onto the back of the bike in a single smooth motion, which I felt was cool, and landed with too much of my weight on my genitals, which I felt was not. ~ Jim Butcher

now, I still didn't have enough money to pay for all the repairs, and I had set out to fix the door on my own. I hadn't framed it very well, but I try to think positive: The new door was arguably even more secure than the old one - now you could barely get the damned thing open even when it wasn't locked. ~ 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

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

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

I love being a wizard. Every day is like Disneyland. ~ 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

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

Heroines in dramas, Bridget felt, really ought to have more sense. ~ Jim Butcher

I've got blisters and muscle cramps in places not meant for the touch of anything but a beautiful woman," Max spat back sullenly. "I've bitten my tongue so many times in the past three days that I whistle in musical chords when I exhale. And the smell isn't ever going to come out of my armor, I just know it. ~ Jim Butcher

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

Well. You've got me cornered, don't you? I'm at your mercy." Her lips quirked. She took a drag of her cigarette. "And I like a man who just won't stop. ~ Jim Butcher

Now that I've got this to keep me safe off the island," I said very quietly, "what's to stop me from having Alfred drop you into a cell right this second, and solving my problems myself?" "I am," Mab said. She gave me a very small, very chill smile, and held up her finger. There was a tiny droplet of my blood upon it, scarlet against her pale skin. ~ Jim Butcher

The campus police officer folded his hands and stared at me from across the table. "Coffee?" "What flavor is it?" I asked. He was in his forties, a big, solid man with bags under his calm, wary eyes, and his name tag read dean. "It's coffee-flavored coffee." "No mocha?" "Fuck mocha." "Thank God," I said. "Black. ~ Jim Butcher

The heart of democracy is violence, Miss Tagwynn," Esterbrook said. "In order to decide what to do, we take a count of everyone for and against it, and then do whatever the larger side wishes to do. We're having a symbolic battle, its outcome decided by simple numbers. It saves us time and no end of trouble counting actual bodies - but don't mistake it for anything but ritualized violence. And every few years, if the person we elected doesn't do the job we wanted, we vote him out of office - we symbolically behead him and replace him with someone else. Again, without the actual pain and bloodshed, but acting out the ritual of violence nonetheless. It's actually a very practical way of getting things done. ~ Jim Butcher

Her looks were almost extraneous. They weren't any more important to her appeal than a glass was to wine. ~ 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

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

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

I poke at my skull with a finger. It didn't feel soft or anything. I didn't feel insane. But if you'd really lost it, would you have enough left to know? Crazy people never thought they were crazy.
"I've always talked to things," I said. "And to myself."
"Good point," myself agreed with me. "Unless that means you've been nuts all along."
"I don't need wiseass remarks," I told myself severely. "There's work to do. So shut up. ~ Jim Butcher

I don't have anything against God. Far from it. But I don't understand Him. And I don't trust a lot of the people that go around claiming that they're working in His best interests. ~ Jim Butcher