Harry Dresden Quotes - Page 2

Loneliness is a hard thing to handle. I feel it, sometimes. When I do, I want it to end. Sometimes, when you're near someone, when you touch them on some level that is deeper than the uselessly structured formality of casual civilized interaction, there's a sense of satisfaction in it. Or at least, there is for me. It doesn't have to be someone particularly nice. You don't have to like them. You don't even have to want to work with them. You might even want to punch them in the nose. Sometimes just making that connection is its own experience, its own reward.

Jim Butcher

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-level affirmation that someone is near, that someone cares.

Jim Butcher

You don't go walking into the proverbial lion's den lightly. You start with a good breakfast.

Jim Butcher

You're reacted to the fear, but you haven't ever faced it and put it into the fight perspective. You have to make up your mind to overcome it.

Jim Butcher

Fear has a lot of flavors and textures. There's a sharp, silver fear that runs like lightning through your arms and legs, galvanizes you into action, power, motion. There's heavy, leaden fear that comes in ingots, piling up in your belly during the empty hours between midnight and morning, when everything is dark, every problem grows larger, and every wound and illness grows worse. And there is coppery fear, drawn tight as the strings of a violin, quavering on one single note that cannot possibly be sustained for a single second longer—but goes on and on and on, the tension before the crash of cymbals, the brassy challenge of the horns, the threatening rumble of the kettle drums. That's the kind of fear I felt. Horrible, clutching tension that left the coppery flavor of blood on my tongue. Fear of the creatures in the darkness around me, of my own weakness, the stolen power the Nightmare had torn from me. And fear for those around me, for the folk who didn't have the power I had.

Jim Butcher

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.

Jim Butcher

Karrin."She looked up at me. She looked very young somehow."Remember what I said yesterday," I said. "You're hurt. But you'll get through it. You'll be okay."She closed her eyes tightly. "I'm scared. So scared I'm sick.""You'll get through it.""What if I don't?"I squeezed her fingers. "Then I will personally make fun of you every day for the rest of your life," I said. "I will call you a sissy girl in front of everyone you know, tie frilly aprons on your car, and lurk in the parking lot at CPD and whistle and tell you to shake it, baby. Every. Single. Day."Murphy's breath escaped in something like a hiccup. She opened her eyes, a mix of anger and wary amusement easing into them in place of fear. "You do realize I'm holding a gun, right?

Jim Butcher

I know how you feel," I said. "You run into something you totally don't get, and it's scary as hell. But once you learn something about it, it gets easier to handle. Knowledge counters fear. It always has.

Jim Butcher

Knowledge is the ultimate weapon. It always has been.

Jim Butcher

I'm not a Wiccan. I'm not big on churches of any kind, despite the fact that I've spoken, face-to-face, with an archangel of the Almighty.But there were some things I believed in. Some things I had faith in. And faith isn't about perfect attendance to services, or how much money you put on the little plate. It isn't about going skyclad to the Holy Rites, or meditating each day upon the divine.Faith is about what you do. It's about aspiring to be better and nobler and kinder than you are. It's about making sacrifices for the good of others--even when there's not going to be anyone telling you what a hero you are.Faith is a power of its own, and one even more elusive and difficult to define than magic.

Jim Butcher

They don't make morgues with windows. In fact, if the geography allows for it, they hardly ever make morgues above the ground. I guess it's partly because it must be eisier to refrigerate a bunch of coffin-sized chambers in a room insulated by the earth. But that can't be all there is to it. Under the earth means a lot more than relative altitude. It's where dead things fit. Graves are under the earth. So are Hell, Gehenna, Hades, and a dozen other reported afterlives.Maybe it says somthing about people. Maybe for us, under the earth is a subtle and profound statement. Maybe ground level provides us with a kind of symbolic boundary marker, an artificial construct that helps us remember that we are alive. Mabye it helps us push death's shadow back from our lives.I live in a basement apartment and like it. What does that say about me?Probably that I overanalyze things.

Jim Butcher

If you go to your death rather than do everything you might to prevent what is happening, you are merely committing suicide and trying to make yourself feel better about it. That is the act of a coward. It is beneath contempt.

Jim Butcher

Magic comes from the heart, from your feelings, your deepest expressions of desire. That's why black magic is so easy—it comes from lust, from fear and anger, from things that are easy to feed and make grow. The sort I do is harder. It comes from something deeper than that, a truer and purer source—harder to tap, harder to keep, but ultimately more elegant, more powerful. My magic. That was at the heart of me. It was a manifestation of what I believed, what I lived. It came from my desire to see to it that someone stood between the darkness and the people it would devour. It came from my love of a good steak, from the way I would sometimes cry at a good movie or a moving symphony. From my life. From the hope that I could make things better for someone else, if not always for me. Somewhere, in all of that, I touched on something that wasn't tapped out, in spite of how horrible the past days had been, something that hadn't gone cold and numb inside of me. I grasped it, held it in my hand like a firefly, and willed its energy out, into the circle I had created with the spinning amulet on the end of its chain.

Jim Butcher

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

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 have nightmares about hell, where all I do is add up numbers and try to have conversations with people like you.

Jim Butcher

Don't call me a dinosaur. It isn't fair to the dinosaurs. What did a dinosaur ever do to you?

Jim Butcher

See? This is why I'm not religious. I couldn't possibly keep my mouth shut long enough to get along with everyone else.

Jim Butcher

Black Court vampires. I just shortened it some."Ebenezar tsked. "Blampires. That's the problem with you young people. Shortening all the words.

Jim Butcher

Laughter is good for you. Nine out of ten stand-up comedians recommend laughter in the face of intense stupidity.

Jim Butcher

Da. This is going very well already."Thomas barked out a laugh. "There are seven of us against the Red King and his thirteen most powerful nobles, and it's going well?"Mouse sneezed."Eight," Thomas corrected himself. He rolled his eyes and said, "And the psycho death faerie makes it nine.""It is like movie," Sanya said, nodding. "Dibs on Legolas.""Are you kidding?" Thomas said. "I'm obviously Legolas. You're . . ." He squinted thoughtfully at Sanya and then at Martin. "Well. He's Boromir and you're clearly Aragorn.""Martin is so dour, he is more like Gimli." Sanya pointed at Susan. "Her sword is much more like Aragorn's.""Aragorn wishes he looked that good," countered Thomas."What about Karrin?" Sanya asked."What--for Gimli?" Thomas mused. "She is fairly--""Finish that sentence, Raith, and we throw down," said Murphy in a calm, level voice."Tough," Thomas said, his expression aggrieved. "I was going to say 'tough.' "As the discussion went on--with Molly's sponsorship, Mouse was lobbying to claim Gimli on the basis of being the shortest, the stoutest, and the hairiest--"Sanya," I said. "Who did I get cast as?""Sam," Sanya said.I blinked at him. "Not . . . Oh, for crying out loud, it was perfectly obvious who I should have been."Sanya shrugged. "It was no contest. They gave Gandalf to your godmother. You got Sam.

Jim Butcher

Heroism doesn't pay very well. I try to be cold-blooded and money-oriented, but I keep screwing it up.

Jim Butcher

A succubus on the set. Strike that, the health-conscious kid sister made it two… succubuses. Succubusees? Succubi? Stupid Latin correspondence course.

Jim Butcher

I realized then what had happened.She had turned us--all of us, except for Mouse--into great, gaunt, long-legged hounds.Wonderful!" Lea said, pirouetting upon one toe, laughing. "Come, children!" And she leapt off into the jungle, nimble and swift as a doe.A bunch of us dogs stood around for a moment, just sort of staring at one another..

Jim Butcher

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

Jim Butcher

Beside me, Molly rolled her shoulders in a few jerky motions and pushed at her hair in fitful little gestures. She tugged at her well-tattered skirts, and grimaced at her boots. "Can you see if there’s any mud on them?" I paused to consider her for a second. Then I said, "You have two tattoos showing right now, and you probably used a fake ID to get them. Your piercings would set off any metal detector worth the name, and you’re featuring them in parts of your anatomy your parents wish you didn’t yet realize you had. You’re dressed like Frankenhooker, and your hair has been dyed colors I previously thought existed only in cotton candy.” I turned to face the door again. “I wouldn’t waste time worrying about a little mud on the boots.

Jim Butcher

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

Jim Butcher

Hell's bells, irony blows.

Jim Butcher

Put some clothes on, you weird, yellow-eyed, table-dancing, werewolf-training, cryptic, stare-me-right-in-the-eyes-and-don't-even-blink wench.

Jim Butcher

In the action business, when you don't want to say you ran like a mouse, you call it 'taking cover.' It's more heroic.

Jim Butcher

If I was on the road to Hell, at least I was going in style.

Jim Butcher

It came charging toward me, several hundred pounds of angry-looking monster, and I did the only thing any reasonable wizard could have done.I turned around and ran like hell.

Jim Butcher

How long have you been a Wiccan?''A what?''A pagan. A witch.''I'm not a witch,' I said, glancing out the door. 'I'm a wizard.'Sanya frowned. 'What is the difference?''Wizard has a Z'He looked at me blankly.'No one appreciates me.' I muttered.

Jim Butcher

You rush a miracle worker, you get lousy miracles!

Jim Butcher

Murphy hung up and I said, to the still-open line, "Hey, if you've got someone watching my place, could you call the cops if anyone tries to steal my Star Wars poster? It's an original."Then I vindictively hung up on the FBI. It made my inner child happy.

Jim Butcher

Hell's holy stars and freaking stones shit bells.

Jim Butcher

I let out a battle cry. Sure, a lot of people might have mistaken it for a sudden yelp of unmanly fear, but trust me. It was a battle cry.

Jim Butcher

I don't know about your true form, but the weight of your ego sure is pushing the crust of the earth toward the breaking point.

Jim Butcher

I'd made the vampire cry. Great. I felt like a real superhero. Harry Dresden, breaker of monsters' hearts.

Jim Butcher

She frowned at me. "You need some rest. You look like hell. And you're obviously tired enough to have gotten the giggles."Wizards don't giggle," I said, hardly able to speak. "This is cackling.

Jim Butcher

I’ve had a tense couple of days. And I’ve got to tell you, burning someone’s face off sounds like a great way to relax.

Jim Butcher

Ack!" I said.Fearless master of the witty dialogue, that's me.

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 still can't believe," Michael said, sotto voce, "that you came to the Vampires' Masquerade Ball dressed as a vampire.

Jim Butcher

So. You get handed a holy sword by an archangel, told to go fight the forces of evil, and you somehow remain an atheist. Is that what you're saying?

Jim Butcher

I died. I died and someone made a clerical error and I am in Heaven.

Jim Butcher

In the name of the Pizza Lord. Charge!

Jim Butcher

We have now left Reason and Sanity Junction. Next stop, Looneyville.

Jim Butcher

We are not going to die." Butters stared up at me, pale, his eyes terrified. "We're not?" "No. And do you know why?" He shook his head. "Because Thomas is too pretty to die. And because I'm too stubborn to die." I hauled on the shirt even harder. "And most of all because tomorrow is Oktoberfest, Butters, and polka will never die.

Jim Butcher

I'm dealing with a lot of scary things. I think you have to react to them. And you either laugh at them or you go insane.

Jim Butcher

I don't want to live in a world where the strong rule and the weak cower. I'd rather make a place where things are a little quieter. Where trolls stay the hell under their bridges and where elves don't come swooping out to snatch children from their cradles. Where vampires respect the limits, and where the faeries mind their p's and q's. My name is Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden. Conjure by it at your own risk. When things get strange, when what goes bump in the night flicks on the lights, when no one else can help you, give me a call. I'm in the book.

Jim Butcher

There're things we keep hidden from one another. Things we hide from ourselves. Things that are kept hidden from us. And things no one knows. You always learn the damnedest things at the worst possible times.

Jim Butcher

It isn't good to hold on too hard to the past. You can't spend your whole life looking back. Not even when you can't see what lies ahead. All you can do is keep on keeping on, and try to believe that tomorrow will be what it should be—even if it isn't what you expected.

Jim Butcher

There are things you can't walk away from. Not if you want to live with yourself afterward.

Jim Butcher

Many things are not as they seem: The worst things in life never are.

Jim Butcher

Pain is a byproduct of life. That’s the truth. Life sometimes sucks. That’s true for everyone. But if you don’t face the pain and the suck, you don’t ever get the other things either. Laughter. Joy. Love. Pain passes, but those things are worth fighting for. Worth dying for.

Jim Butcher

Son. Everyone dies alone. That's what it is. It's a door. It's one person wide. When you go through it, you do it alone. But it doesn't mean you've got to be alone before you go through the door. And believe me, you aren't alone on the other side.

Jim Butcher

Life would be unbearably dull if we had answers to all our questions.

Jim Butcher

But the only way never to do the wrong thing is never to do anything.

Jim Butcher

Sure, we'd faced some things as children that a lot of kids don't. Sure, Justin had qualified for his Junior de Sade Badge in his teaching methods for dealing with pain. We still hadn't learned, though, that growing up is all about getting hurt. And then getting over it. You hurt. You recover. You move on. Odds are pretty good you're just going to get hurt again. But each time, you learn something.Each time, you come out of it a little stronger, and at some point you realize that there are more flavors of pain than coffee. There's the little empty pain of leaving something behind - gradutaing, taking the next step forward, walking out of something familiar and safe into the unknown. There's the big, whirling pain of life upending all of your plans and expecations. There's the sharp little pains of failure, and the more obscure aches of successes that didn't give you what you thought they would. There are the vicious, stabbing pains of hopes being torn up. The sweet little pains of finding others, giving them your love, and taking joy in their life they grow and learn. There's the steady pain of empathy that you shrug off so you can stand beside a wounded friend and help them bear their burdens. And if you're very, very lucky, there are a very few blazing hot little pains you feel when you realized that you are standing in a moment of utter perfection, an instant of triumph, or happiness, or mirth which at the same time cannot possibly last - and yet will remain with you for life.Everyone is down on pain, because they forget something important about it: Pain is for the living. Only the dead don't feel it.Pain is a part of life. Sometimes it's a big part, and sometimes it isn't, but either way, it's a part of the big puzzle, the deep music, the great game. Pain does two things: It teaches you, tells you that you're alive. Then it passes away and leaves you changed. It leaves you wiser, sometimes. Sometimes it leaves you stronger. Either way, pain leaves its mark, and everything important that will ever happen to you in life is going to involve it in one degree or another.

Jim Butcher

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Harry Dresden Quotes - Page 2

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