Kevin Hearne Quotes

Thunder gods don't hide."
The Russian shrugged. "I am not like Thor. I have Russian depth of character. And I like to help people, not hurt them. Usually I help with vodka. You want some? ~ Kevin Hearne

That wasn't so bad. She said, dabbing at her mouth with a napkin. What was it?
That was a Rocky Mountain oyster, also know as a Montana tendergroin.
No. I just ate bull's balls?
Only one, but yes, you just tore up a tasty testicle. Congratulations! ~ Kevin Hearne

To be rooted is to say, here am I nourished and here will I grow, for I have found a place where every sunrise shows me how to be more than what I was yesterday, and I need not wander to feel the wonder of my blessing. ~ Kevin Hearne

What sealed the deal for me was that the cloak wouldn't come off without a generous donation of my tears. Those used to be almost impossible for me to summon, I admit, until I watched Field of Dreams. When Kevin Costner asks his dad at the end if he'd like to have a catch, I just completely lose my shit. ~ Kevin Hearne

I don't speak Otter, ya dumbass. What are ya waitin' for? Get over here so we can get back to the rez. Unless I'm talkin' to a real otter, in which case I'm the dumbass and you can just stay over there. I ~ Kevin Hearne

Now, I will be the first to admit that human life was not worth much to my generation in the Iron Age, but Flidais and her kind are forever rooted in Bronze Age morality, which goes something like this: If it pleases me, then it is good and I want more; If it displeases me, then it must be destroyed as soon as possible, but preferably in a way that enhances my reputation so that I can achieve immortality in the songs of bards. ~ Kevin Hearne

Fucking H!" the vampire shouted, shaking his free left fist. He enunciated the g very clearly and projected his voice from his diaphragm, like a trained opera singer. "It's fuckin' A, not H, but yeah, Leif, go ahead, let's throw down." Leif paused and frowned. "Do you not mean we should throw up?" "No. See, when you throw up you're vomiting, but when you throw down you're starting a fight, as in throwing down the gauntlet." "Ohhhh," he said. "I thought you were speaking literally. ~ Kevin Hearne

Did you get me that movie about Genghis Khan?
'It's in the Netflix queue, but that's not the surprise. You don't need to worry, it'll be something good. I just don't want you to feel depressed about going home.'
Oh, I won't. But it would be cool to have a stream like this in the backyard. Can you make one?
'Ummm... no.'
I figured. Can't blame a hound for trying.
Oberon was indeed surprised when we got back home to Tempe. Hal had made the arrangements for me and Oberon perked up as soon as we were dropped off by the shuttle from the car rental company.
'Hey, smells like someone's in my territory,' he said.
'Nobody could be here without my permission, you know that.'
'Flidais did it.'
'That isn't Flidais you smell, believe me.'
I opened the front door, and Oberon immediately ran to the kitchen window that gazed upon the backyard. He barked joyously when he saw what was waiting for him there.
'French poodles! All black and curly with poofy little tails!'
'And every one of them in heat.'
'Oh, WOW! Thanks Atticus! I can't wait to sniff their asses!'
He bounded over to the door and pawed at it because the doggie door was closed to prevent the poodles from entering.
'You earned it, buddy. Hold on, get down off the door so I can open it for you, and be careful, don't hurt any of them.'
I opened the door, expecting him to bolt through it and dive into his own personal canine harem, but instead he took one ~ Kevin Hearne

The function of assholes in the world, just like the asshole we all have, is to spread shit around. ~ Kevin Hearne

Atticus, I think we're being stalked by the ghost of Alfred Hitchcock. First it was a Vulture adn now two giant ravens are coming our way. Oberon ~ Kevin Hearne

This guy is an epic douche. Kick his shiny ass, Atticus, Oberon said.
I compartmentalized his comment and resolved to enjoy it later. I glared at this would be usurper and said in my most authoritative voice, "Aenghus Og, you have broken Druidic law by killing the land around us and opening a gate to hell, unleashing demons on this plane. I judge you guilty and sentence you to death."
Amen, Atticus! Testify! ~ Kevin Hearne

You're going to need a dann big can of big spray! Or maybe a rocket-propelled grenade. I have one in the garage, you want it? ~ Kevin Hearne

If you tell me I have to talk like an illiterate halfwit to fit into this society, I will punch you. ~ Kevin Hearne

You don't need to say any special incantation or sacrifice a stray cat or something first? ~ Kevin Hearne

Never thought I'd see a jaguar brought to its knees by rhino shit. Oberon ~ Kevin Hearne

Atticus:"Damn it, Jim, I'm a Druid not a Physicist! ~ Kevin Hearne

I still didn't know quite what the witches were capable of. The threshold could be booby-trapped or enchanted. I could be walking into a cage fight with a demon. Hell, she could open the door with a Glock 9 in her hand and put a bullet in my ear, or throw a cat at me, or call me a damn hippie. ~ Kevin Hearne

And there were carved hearts in the trunks of trees with the initials of couples who felt there was no more romantic thing they could do to celebrate their love than scar the local plant life ~ Kevin Hearne

Bullshit, as you Americans say.
He's Irish.
The Irish say bullshit too. ~ Kevin Hearne

Heh! Fuck yew," I said. ~ Kevin Hearne

Is monstrous fuckpuddle,' Perun asserted, and everyone turned to stare at him with equal parts amusement and bemusement. 'What? Is this not English word?' I suggested that if it wasn't a word, it should be, and the others agreed. ~ Kevin Hearne

No worries, Atticus. I will snarf surreptitiously. And I should get bacon, because my adverb was two syllables longer than yours, plus a bonus for alliteration."
I grinned. "It's a deal. You're the best hound ever. ~ Kevin Hearne

My God, Atticus, you look like you had an orgy with egg yolks and orange juice." "We might need a loofah," I admitted. "Dare I ask what happened?" "An Olympian exploded on us and it was yucky. ~ Kevin Hearne

It is best to know when to keep your salami in your pants and when to pull it out, however, and even my priests have had some difficulty with that issue. ~ Kevin Hearne

Yes, you're adorable, aren't you? Are you a good boy, Snugglepumpkin?" Oberon wagged his tail and came over within petting distance. "Oh, yes, you are a good boy, yes, you are." She stopped making sense and instead made high-pitched squeals of delight as she scratched Oberon's giant head; the rest of us stood and watched as a woman with an advanced degree completely lost her mind. Okay, ~ Kevin Hearne

All right, buddy. What'll it be? ~ Kevin Hearne

Now go and stake some vamps. Especially the sparkly emo ones. ~ Kevin Hearne

For me, the times I always regret are missed opportunities to say farewell to good people, to wish them long life and say to them in all sincerity, "You build and do not destroy; you sow goodwill and reap it; smiles bloom in the wake of your passing, and I will keep your kindness in trust and share it as occasion arises, so that your life will be a quenching draught of calm in a land of drought and stress." Too often I never get to say that when it should be said. Instead, I leave them with the equivalent of a "Later, dude!" only to discover there would be no later for us. ~ Kevin Hearne

The universe is exactly the size that your soul can encompass. Some people live in extremely small worlds, and some live in a world of infinite possibility. You ~ Kevin Hearne

Dude is that was a Shakespeare quote duel, he just kicked your ass. Oberon
I know, but I slipped in some T.S.Eliot and he didn't even catch it. Hopefully next time I wont be recovering from an assassination attempt, and then I'll do better. - Atticus ~ Kevin Hearne

Do you think I'm some sort of sex-starved loser?" "Well, you are American." "What!" Great festering tapir tits, that was a stupid thing to say. ~ Kevin Hearne

Your gift for euphemism continues to thrive. But I think I have heard of such modern relationships. There is a colloquialism for them, yes? They are boogie calls." "Boogie? Oh! Nice try. You were very close. They're known as booty calls." "That's what I said. Booty calls." "You said boogie - " The Morrigan's eyes flashed red for the briefest moment, and I cleared my throat. "Pardon me. I must have misheard you. Quite right. ~ Kevin Hearne

Normally I laugh at such things, because there is nothing like a fart to lighten up a tense situation. ~ Kevin Hearne

We banked around until we found a rainbow in the dark. It was on this occasion that I discovered that Granuaile had never heard of Ronnie James Dio. My shock at this news was such that I almost completely missed the fact that we were traveling on Bifrost, the rainbow bridge to Asgard. ~ Kevin Hearne

I dropped to my knees next to Nakari, eyes welling up already, and in a strange way I welcomed the blur to my vision and let the tears come; I'd never done so before because it had never seemed the proper time to mourn. Ben had been there when I discovered the burnt bodies of my aunt and uncle and I'd bottled everything up in shock, telling myself that the Empire was hunting us and we had to get to Alderaan. When Vader cut down Ben, there was no time to mourn him, either, only time to escape the Death Star and then join the Battle of Yavin. I lost my old friend Biggs to a TIE fighter during that battle, but I could hardly allow myself to think of that when I had to make my firing run down the trench. Then, incredibly, we won the day and everyone was happy, and there was always more work to do after that. It was never the right time to stop and feel all that I'd lost. ~ Kevin Hearne

He will spit you and roast you with rosemary, and we will all sample your flesh tonight. Tomorrow you will be shat out into the snow.
Your diplomacy is bold and edgy, sir. ~ Kevin Hearne

You should learn Polish and read Szymborska! ~ Kevin Hearne

As any war veteran will tell you, there is a vast difference between preparing for battle and actually facing battle for the first time. You can be told that reading Victor Hugo will sap your will to live, but you can't understand what it means until you've read a few chapters and your eyes are glazed over and someone has to revive you with a defibrillator. ~ Kevin Hearne

I come to dungeon for good time - which maybe is problem, I admit - but I get bad time instead. ~ Kevin Hearne

The witch obviously wanted my help with something, and I could only assume that she wanted a new body to inhabit. But I didn't have any of those currently in stock, and bodies were one of the few things you couldn't buy (yet) on Amazon. ~ Kevin Hearne

I am Snugglepumpkin. Hear me roar ~ Kevin Hearne

it already sounds like they are giving me the equivalent of a Multipass. ~ Kevin Hearne

What do you know? She liked to be told she was scary. Kinky. ~ Kevin Hearne

He could focus my attention on how perfectly sublime life can be at times. Such moments are ephemeral, and without his guidance I might have missed many of them, working so hard to get somewhere that I would fail to recognize when I had arrived. ~ Kevin Hearne

I see. And who is this author?"
"Neil Fucking Gaiman."
"His second name is Fucking?"
"No, Leif, that's the honorary second name all celebrities are given by their fans. It's not an insult, it's a huge compliment, and he's earned it. You'd like him. He dresses all in black like you. Read a couple of his books, and then when you meet him, you'll squee too."
Leif found the suggestion distasteful. "I would never behave with so little dignity. Nor would I wish to be confronted in such a manner by anyone else. Vampires inspire screams, not squees. Involuntary urination is common, I grant, but it properly flows from a sense of terror, not an ecstatic sense of hero worship. ~ Kevin Hearne

Turns out that when you kill a god, people want to talk to you. ~ Kevin Hearne

Iron can be bent to your will, if your will is stronger than the iron. But ~ Kevin Hearne

Oberon:She's a very clever girl, the kind you dont' take home to Ogma. ~ Kevin Hearne

It's all Irish politics."
Hal looked at me sharply and shook a finger in my face. "That's bloody dangerous, getting involved in that. You be careful."
I gaped at Hal. "I can't believe you just said that to me."
"What?" Hal protested, shrugging his shoulders and looking aggrieved.
"I called to ask Gunnar for help with the Bacchants yesterday and he shut me down. No well-wishing, no pleas to be careful, nothing. So now we're dealing with the aftermath of what happens when I try to go it alone, , and you tell me to be careful about Irish politics?"
"Well, I know precisely where Gunnar's coming from. It's not our job to keep the magical peace."
"Neither is it mine."
~ Kevin Hearne

Like the honey badger, the werewolf takes what it wants. ~ Kevin Hearne

Did you just say Ragnarok is poppycock? ~ Kevin Hearne

I wonder if they have a fancy law or name for the principle that Humans Ruin Everything for Profit. Maybe that's just capitalism ~ Kevin Hearne

There are only three things you can do when something falls from the sky,' my archdruid used to say. 'Get out of the way, get underneath some shelter, or give it some reason to change its mind about falling on you.' Then he threw a pissed-off rooster at me. ~ Kevin Hearne

A morbid thought wandered into my consciousness and said hello: If Basasael ate my dumb Druid ass, would the Morrigan be able to bring me back fully functional, resurrected from - what? Angel poop? That raised another question, at once metaphysical and profane: Do angels, fallen or otherwise, have assholes? ~ Kevin Hearne

What's silly is paying five bucks for hot milk and flavored syrup! But now I see what's really been going on all this time! They charge you all that money because they need it for the R & D! Somewhere on the outskirts of Seattle, there's a secret facility with higher security than Area 51, and inside there are men with poor eyesight and bad haircuts wearing white coats, and they're trying to make the Holy Grail of all coffee drinks.
The bacon latte?
No, Atticus, I already told you those exist! I'm talking about the prophecy! 'Out of the steam and the foam and the froth, a man in white with poor eyesight will craft a liquid paradox, and it shall be called the Triple Nonfat Double Bacon Five-Cheese Mocha!'
Oberon, what the F
? ~ Kevin Hearne

Well, if that's how it happened, I don't like how Etain was never given a choice. Both Midhir and Eochaid should have been kicked in the marble bag for behaving like her hoo-ha was something they could buy and sell" ~ Granuaile ~ Kevin Hearne

Hopefully next time I won't be recovering from an assassination attempt, and then I'll do better. ~ Kevin Hearne

You will respect my authori-tah!' Oberon said, in a passable imitation of Eric Cartman. I reminded him that I needed to concentrate. Sometimes dogs forget; they just get too excited. ~ Kevin Hearne

I tend to vacillate between belief systems. Right now I'm kind of checking out the whole buffet, you know, and maybe in a little while I'll decide on what I want to put on my plate and chow down on. ~ Kevin Hearne

Atticus: You hear that? The nice blonde in her thirties is actually over 140 years old. :
Oberon: She must use that Oil of Olay stuff. I wonder if it would get rid of the wrinkles on a shar-pei? ~ Kevin Hearne

Here is how you know someone has had a good idea: Other people freely admit to their friends that said idea has changed their lives. Most people today will grant that fire and the wheel are the big two. After that, any attempts to rank the greatest ideas of all time are going to draw lots of argument. You'll have zealots pimping this god or that on the one hand, scientists pimping Darwin on the other, and then practical people pointing at written language and saying, look, fellas, the reason those ideas have gone viral is because someone figured out how to write them down. ~ Kevin Hearne

An elderly diner from a neighboring table had been dying for an excuse to stare at the exotic woman with rubies around her neck, and now Laksha had provided her one by laughing so loudly. She noticed the woman's stare and waggled her finger between us and explained, "We were just talking about goatfucking." The woman's eyes bulged in shock - and so did those of her dinner companions - but rather than scold Laksha for being so rude, they hastily returned to attacking their enchiladas with their dentures, eyes studiously contemplating plates of melted cheese and red sauce. ~ Kevin Hearne

Their numbers swell like viruses until they madden someone with a large army. ~ Kevin Hearne

She switched from ecstasy to embarrassment at about Mach five. ~ Kevin Hearne

Sophie Betsuie lost her composure and returned to the hogan, crying. She was beating herself up with a club made out of the words if only, and I knew what it felt like. If only I hadn't done this. If only someone else hadn't done that. I hoped she would learn sooner, rather than later, that you can't unchoose anyone's choices, least of all your own. All you can do with your past is try to grow out of it. ~ Kevin Hearne

Where are we going?
I don't know yet.
Anyplace is good, so long as there's sausage and bitches. ~ Kevin Hearne

so I drop the rock and cross my arms in front of me, suddenly self-conscious in the presence of two goddesses who look like comic book heroines. ~ Kevin Hearne

Flidais nods in approval. "Respect for life. Good."
I want to ask where her respect for life is, why she thinks it is all right to treat animals like puppets and force me to kill one of them in some sort of sick game. ~ Kevin Hearne

Brain death didn't allow one time to heal, and the brain was the warehouse for the spirit. Punch a hole in that and you'd shuffle off your mortal coil right away.
Keeping your coil unshuffled was the problem. ~ Kevin Hearne

Better to ask forgiveness than permission and to answer their shenanigans with even better shenanigans. ~ Kevin Hearne

We arrived someplace where the ground was as blue as the sky. Startled by our sudden appearance, blue pheasants erupted out of the blue grass and shat blue shit. ~ Kevin Hearne

Druid log July 15: Dark elves are not only quick and efficient killers, but creative and pyrotechnically inclined ones. ~ Kevin Hearne

Guilt ferrets are bastards. ~ Kevin Hearne

is the Way and the Truth. ~ Kevin Hearne

We should be going in there with a thousand naked warriors who fight like wet cats with dodgy bowls. ~ Kevin Hearne

I had my own dump truck of bad karma waiting for me somewhere ahwad. I had certainly earned it, but I raced to avoid it if I could; there was no way I wanted to fell that. ~ Kevin Hearne

you can't unchoose anyone's choices, least of all your own. All you can do with your past is try to grow out of it. Darren ~ Kevin Hearne

Mr. Tall, Blonde and Lightning ~ Kevin Hearne

When in a fight for your life, you never, ever fight fairly. Honor and sportsmanship are wonderful in games that don't matter, but it's the honorable guys who always die in real battles. "When there's blood involved," I'd told her, "you always use every advantage you have to make sure it's theirs that spills and not yours. If you want to feel guilty about taking unfair advantage afterward, you go ahead and feel that shit. But live to feel it." In ~ Kevin Hearne

I jumped up and down and swore violently in seventeen languages. ~ Kevin Hearne

You killed my father," he snorted in a basso profundo rumble. "Prepare to die!" "Inigo Montoya? Is that you? ~ Kevin Hearne

Why don't high school math teachers ever come up with cool problems like this? If a 150-pound Irish wolfhound launches himself at seventeen miles per hour at a 250-pound draugr, will that dead motherfucker go down? The answer is Hel yes. ~ Kevin Hearne

Careful with that ego, you could knock somebody over. Atticus ~ Kevin Hearne

At this point we hated each other as much as it was possible for two Irishmen to do-and that's quite a bit. ~ Kevin Hearne

misbegotten cockwaffle. ~ Kevin Hearne

Icy glares from vampires are far icier than icy glares from people and when the vampire giving you an icy glare is originally from Iceland, you're confronted with the archetypal origin of the term, and you shouldn't be surprised if your core body temperature drops a few degrees. ~ Kevin Hearne

I knew it would annoy her. She'd deliberately tried to provoke me, and one cannot sass me with impunity. ~ Kevin Hearne

Sensei?" she asked. "Yes?" "Why are you always leaving about halfway through a workout to give Oberon a snack?" "What? Well, he's a good dog." "Granted, but he's a good dog all the time, and the only times you interrupt what you're doing to give him a snack are during workouts." "I reward him sometimes for using big words. And sometimes I reward him for shutting up." Now would be a good time to shut up. Deal. "So what did he say just now?" Granuaile asked. "I'm sorry, but that's classified information. ~ Kevin Hearne

Silly cop, I don't need your help; I have a werewolf on retainer. ~ Kevin Hearne

Oberon said from behind the counter.
I busied myself making Emily's tea and spoke to him through our link. 'Yes, well, she's decided to take the high road, so I'll be happy to walk it with her as long as she likes.'

'Nope. She's a witch. A polite witch, but still a witch. She's got a charm on her hair that would have had me giving her anything she wanted if I hadn't been wearing protection. Don't take anything from her, by the way.'

'Oh yes she does. Emily has probably already told her.'

'How would you know the difference if she did? You think all sausages are magic. ~ Kevin Hearne

What Sherlock does is train his mind to remember details, access them as needed, and then spy the hidden pattern in them. It's like spotting animals in clouds: The vapor's the same for everyone, but sometimes you're the only person who can see what's floating there, because you have the proper angle and the imagination to see it. And that's the magic of Sherlock Holmes - his talent for synthesis and discovery. Anyone can train the mind to absorb and recall; ~ Kevin Hearne

They say, 'You know nothing, Jon Snow. ~ Kevin Hearne

You said he was shot by his own clone troopers?" "That was what his recording said. We, of course, had no way to confirm it. Asking the local garrison of troopers if someone may have shot a Rodian Jedi Knight offplanet would attract the wrong sort of attention. But it's stunning in its implications, isn't it? Looked at in that light, it might have been the Jedi who were betrayed, not the Emperor." Not ~ Kevin Hearne

Demons smell like ass - nasty ass that slithers down your throat, finds your gag reflex, and sits on it with authority. ~ Kevin Hearne

Trees are always the cure for your modern bollocks. ~ Kevin Hearne

People today think ancient Egypt was ineffably cool. I blame this misconception on hieroglyphics and (to a lesser extent) on the Bangles. ~ Kevin Hearne

Sometimes you simply need to say thank you to someone, to be grateful for the road behind and the road ahead and the place you're at, and gods are very good at accepting those feelings. And for all that humanity asks them for intercession with this crisis or that, it's important when things go well to be thankful or at least conscious of your good fortune, whether the gods deserve the gratitude or not. We strive so much to achieve these small slivers of balance that it would be a shame not to look around and appreciate them when they happen. ~ Kevin Hearne

Flidais clapped her hands in delight.
"Oh, I bet he nearly shat kine!"
That made me laugh - I hadn't heard that expression in a long, long time. I refrained from telling her that the modern expression would be "he had a cow", because I liked the original better.
"Yes, the kine he nearly shat would have fed several clans. ~ Kevin Hearne

But, look, it is good to have a dream so long as you do not let it gnaw at the substance of your present. I have seen men consumed by their dreams, and it is a sour business. If you cling too tightly to a dream - a poodle bitch or a personal sausage chef or whatever - then you miss the felicity of your heart beating and the smell of the grass growing and the sounds lizards make when you run through the neighborhood with our friend. Your dream should be like a favorite old bone that you savor and cherish and chew upon gently. Then, rather than stealing from you a wasted sigh or the life of an idle hour, it nourishes you, and you become strangely contented by nostalgia for a possible future, so juicy with possibility and redolent of sautéed garlic and decadent slabs of bacon that you feel full when you've eaten nothing. And then, one fine day when the sun smiles upon your snout, then the time is right, you bite down hard. The dream is yours. And then you
chew on the next one. ~ Kevin Hearne

So after I killed him and stowed his body next to the doe, I sampled his smoothie concoction in the parking lot and found it to be quite delicious. ~ Kevin Hearne