Quotes from Jim Butcher

But it's even more important that you build something worth fighting for.

The real battle for your own soul isn't about falling from a great height; it's about descending, or not, one choice at a time.

What's that all about?" "Don't ask me," I told her. "I'm gay now.

The eyes are a window to the soul. Literally. Looking someone steadily in the eyes is an uncomfortable, intense experience for anyone. If you don't believe me, pick a stranger sometime, and just go up to them and stare them in the eye until that moment when there's a sudden acknowledgement of lowered barriers, that moment that inspires awkward silences and racing hearts.

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

When the pain was gone, its simple lack was a nearly narcotic pleasure of its own.

Trials and half a dozen smaller

You know. I never really thought to ask before—but what is that dust made of?" "Depleted uranium," I told him. "At least, that's the base ingredient. I had to add in a lot of other things. Cold iron, basil, dung from a—" "Never mind," he said. "I don't want to know.

Fear is a part of life. It's a warning mechanism. That's all. It tells you when there's danger around. Its job is to help you survive. Not cripple you into being unable to do it.

I had just been defeated by a literal hallucination built from denial and the most determined and pettily self-interested stupidity I had ever encountered.

You can't photograph anything really supernatural," I pointed out. "The energies around things like that will mess up cameras.

They were pretty, too, a blonde, a brunette, and a redhead, and they had nice . . . smiles.

We took off his armor and gear in helicopter, to stop the bleeding. Maybe it fell out into the lake." I snorted. He grimaced and nodded. "Da, I know. That did not happen." I sighed. "Marcone. I'll look into it.

You don't exactly sleep, in situations like that. You close your eyes and stop moving, and then a lot of complicated things happen in your brain.

There is a primal reassurance in being touched, in knowing that someone else, someone close to you, wants to be touching you. There is a bone-deep security that goes with the brush of a human hand a silent, reflex-deep affirmation that someone is near, that someone cares.

Jobs are a part of life. Maybe you've heard of the concept. It's called work? See, what happens is that you suffer through doing annoying and humiliating things until you get paid not enough money. Like those Japanese game shows, only without all the glory.

It was why no sane cat allowed kits to come anywhere near human beings. Humans seemed to feel that it was perfectly acceptable to teach kits to accept food from their hands as a matter of course, rather than teaching them the importance of hunting skill and self-reliance.

There are old swordsmen and bold swordsmen," Nedus said, idly employing the old Legion maxim. "But very few old, bold swordsmen.

We're all of us equally naked before the jaws of pain.

There's good news and bad news." The knight brought his sword to guard again. "I've always been partial to the good news.

Sometimes the best defense is a T. rex.

He heaved a breath. Then set his jaw, nodded, and said, "Got it." "Good man," I said. "You're handling this well." "I am not," Bradley said without slowing his steps. "I am not." "Then you are freaking out in the most useful way possible," I said. "Keep it up.

Kids. You gotta love them. I adore children. A little salt, a squeeze of lemon—perfect.

You know, it wouldn't kill you to be a little more polite." "Why take chances