Quotes from Jim Butcher

What do you need? Vadderung asked. Advice, I said. If the price is right. And what do you think a sufficient price would be? Lucy charges a nickel. Ah, Vadderung said. But Lucy is a psychiatrist. You realize that you've just cast yourself as Charlie Brown. Augh, I said.

This is what it looks like when someone's fighting for his soul, she said. He needs his friends to believe in him. The fastest way for us to help make him into a monster is to look at him like he is one.

It gets sort of Zen after a while," Butters said brightly. "Life is a journey. Time is a river. The door is a jar.

The vampire's true appearance was grotesque--but it wasn't as bad as some of the things I had seen in my day. Some demons were a lot worse, and some of the Elder Things could rip your mind apart just by letting you look at them

When kind men grow angry, things are about to change.

When a mortal dreams, all kinds of strange things can happen. When a wizard dreams, it can be even weirder. Sometimes, dreams can be intense enough to create a little, temporary world of their own.

Money is a madness, a delusion-illusion. It's not made of metal, really. It's made of time. How much is one's time worth? If one can convince enough people that one's time is an invaluable resource, then one has lots and lots of money. That's why one can spend time—only one can never get a refund.

Close your cowardly lips over that void in your head where your brains went missing and keep them there. Then put your lazy, shapeless ass back into your chair and do it swiftly. Or face me in the juris macto.

in the course of my life, I have more than once been too ignorant to know that something was impossible before I did it anyway.

There's been a lot on my mind, I replied. It seems unlikely that your cares will lighten, Queen Mab replied. Improve your mind.

I flicked a comb through my wet hair, for all the good it would do, and said, How do I look? Mostly human, she said. That's what I was going for.

Think of every fairy-tale villainess you've ever heard of. Think of the wicked witches, the evil queens, the mad enchantresses. Think of the alluring sirens, the hungry ogresses, the savage she-beasts. Think of them and remember that somewhere, sometime, they've all been real.

Thwart: to prevent someone from accomplishing something by means of visiting gratuitous violence upon his smarmy person.

The hardest lesson a wizard has to learn is that even with so much power, there are some things you can't control. No matter how much you want to.

Imagine Smaug's treasure hoard. Now imagine Smaug with crippling levels of obsessive-compulsive disorder and fanatic good taste.

I didn't have any money or ID. I didn't have a credit card. Hell, I didn't have a business card. What would it say? 'Harry Dresden, Winter Knight, Targets Slain, No Barbecues, Waterslides, or Fireworks Displays.

It isn't about being fair and equal. It's about the difference between right and wrong. He stared out at the bloody Elinarch. And this was wrong.

She might be the Archive, but she's still a kid, Kincaid. He frowned and looked at me. So? So? Kids like cute. He blinked at me. Cute? Come on. I led him downstairs. On the lower level of the Oceanarium there's an inner ring of exhibits, too, containing both penguins and--wait for it--sea otters. I mean, come on, sea otters. They open abalone with rocks while floating on their backs. How much cuter does it get than small, fuzzy, floating, playful tool users with big, soft brown eyes?

You can't go around making people's choices for them. Not if you love them.

Mister Hendricks [was] manning a rotating-barreled minigun fixed to the deck of the helicopter--completely illegally, of course. But then, I suppose that's really one major advantage to working with criminals. They just don't care about that sort of thing.

You are different. That does not make you less.

That was the damnedest thing about these demonic collaborator types. Even though they didn't work out and practice, they still got to run faster than we dedicated roadsters who actually sweated and strained for our ability to haul ass. Jerks.

Some days, it just doesn't pay to get out of bed.

It's a rational sort of fear that puts a lawn chair down in the front of your thoughts and brings a cooler of drinks along with it.