Quotes from Jim C. Hines

Plans were for adventurers. He preferred the goblin approach. Blind panic might not work all the time, but at least it saved you the stress of planning.

The true enemy of good isn't evil, but fear. Evil will battle good, but fear will corrupt it. — a Merraban saying, quoted by Admiral Pachelbel

But 'I worked hard on this' doesn't exempt you from criticism. Those harsh reviews aren't about anyone being out to get me. It's not an Authors vs. Reviewers thing. It's people taking the time to express their opinions because they care about this stuff." [ Us vs. Them vs. Grow the Hell Up (Blog post, September 1, 2013)]

My name is Isaac Vainio," I said. "You smashed my library. Prepare to die." Everything went better with Princess Bride references.

I closed my eyes, feeling the tug of the books. This was my refuge, my fortress of solitude. Standing in this quiet cave, surrounded by walls of books, was normally enough to ease my mind no matter how stressful things got . . . but not today. Today the books called to me. Every one was a gateway to magic, waiting to be unlocked.

A cop friend downstate had once described what he called the 'pucker effect,' the body's automatic response when something just wasn't right. He wasn't talking about the lips; the puckering happened farther south, and every cop learned to trust that instinct.

Smudge continued running laps, flames flickering like tiny orange banners on his back. He was never wrong about danger, but he couldn't tell you if that danger was a meteorite streaking toward the roof or an amorous moose running amok in the parking lot.

Forget about what goblins would do. Forget about what an adventurer would do. I need to figure out what Jig should do.

He had also jinxed my telescope so that every time I looked at Mars, Marvin the Martian popped up and threatened to destroy the Earth with an explosive space-modulator.

In an interview when asked about becoming a fantasy creature] You know, it might be fun to be Sanguinarius Meyerii (better known as "sparklers"). They have all of the vampire superpowers and almost none of the weaknesses: no burning up in sunlight, no vulnerability to garlic, etc. As for my demise, I have no idea what you're talking about. Once I get this kind of power, I'm planning to live forever. It's the only way I'll catch up on my reading!

Some people would say it's a bad idea to bring a fire-spider into a public library. Those people would probably be right, but it was better than leaving him alone in the house for nine hours straight. The one time I tried, Smudge had expressed his displeasure by burning through the screen that covered his tank, burrowing into my laundry basket, and setting two weeks' worth of clothes ablaze.

Pac-Man?" The beast looked up at me, oversized fangs giving it an expression that straddled the line between deadly and dopey. A string of drool waved pendulum-like from the jaw, pushing it firmly into the latter category. "When he was a puppy, he tried to eat a ghost," Pallas explained.

Watch your step," said Slash. Jig stopped, fully expecting to be shot, poisoned, crushed, or maybe all three at the same time. "What is it now?" Slash pointed to a pile of brown, slimy goo in the center of the tunnel. "Hairball.

As was often the case, Magic just chuckled and kicked physics in the balls, leaving it groaning and wondering what just happened.

I could no longer pull wands, potions, and light sabers out of books, but when it came to research, give me a well-stocked library and I was a goddamned Merlin.

I returned the vial to the book, then surveyed the damage to my library. Angry as I was at Deb's betrayal, seeing the bullet-ridden texts was worse. It was one thing to shoot at me, but to destroy my books

There are too many books in the world to waste time slogging through the ones you hate.

Prometheus had stolen fire from the gods and suffered the consequences. I had returned the gift of the gods, and the price had been my dreams.

Questing is hard. Fortunately, Thomas is here to spoon-feed them answers. We're one step away from him giving them an instruction sheet by Ikea, with cartoonish diagrams and a little goddess-slaying allen wrench.

I hadn't thought to bring anything to wash down the blood. I wondered if they had a font for holy water, and whether anyone would object to me using it as a drinking fountain. Though given that I was trying to absorb vampire magic, using holy water as a chaser probably wasn't a great idea.

None of us can foresee the consequences of such a step." Ponce de Leon ran his fingers through his hair, smoothing it back into place. "Though after centuries of watching mankind, I sometimes suspect intelligence is overrated.

When Theolyn died, the humans had built an enormous pyre and placed his body at the center. How was [Veka] supposed to know humans cremated their dead instead of cooking them? She had figured it out quickly enough, but not before Jimar and his ilk had spotted her standing at the pyre, fork in hand.

I had said before that all stories were magic. It had never occurred to me that all magic was stories.

Isaac, tell your girlfriend she can't bring weapons into holy-shit-your-spider's-on-fire!