Life is a journey. Time is a river. The door is ajar
But the only way never to do the wrong thing is never to do anything.
Life would be unbearably dull if we had answers to all our questions.
Many things are not as they seem: The worst things in life never are.
There are things you can’t walk away from. Not if you want to live with yourself afterward.
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.
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.
Are you always a smartass?’Nope. Sometimes I’m asleep.
We have now left Reason and Sanity Junction. Next stop, Looneyville.
I died. I died and someone made a clerical error and I am in Heaven.
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?
Caring about someone isn’t complicated. It isn’t easy. But it isn’t complicated, either. Kinda like lifting the engine block out of a car.
I still can’t believe,” Michael said, sotto voce, “that you came to the Vampires’ Masquerade Ball dressed as a vampire.
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.
Ack!” I said.Fearless master of the witty dialogue, that’s me.
Kids. You gotta love them. I adore children. A little salt, a squeeze of lemon–perfect.
You know how confusing the whole good-evil concept is for me.
I’d made the vampire cry. Great. I felt like a real superhero. Harry Dresden, breaker of monsters’ hearts.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Harry,” Bob drawled, his eye lights flickering smugly, “what you know about women, I could juggle.
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.
You rush a miracle worker, you get lousy miracles!
If I was on the road to Hell, at least I was going in style.
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.
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.
I’m so pretty, it’s hard for me to think of myself as intelligent.
You’re such a cynic,” Molly said.”I think cynics are playful and cute.
– Did you really save the world ?…- Mostly I was saving my own ass. Just happend that the world was in the same spot.
I love being a wizard. Every day is like Disneyland.
Heroism doesn’t pay very well. I try to be cold-blooded and money-oriented, but I keep screwing it up.
A succubus on the set. Strike that, the health-conscious kid sister made it two… succubuses. Succubusees? Succubi? Stupid Latin correspondence course.
Black Court vampires. I just shortened it some.”Ebenezar tsked. “Blampires. That’s the problem with you young people. Shortening all the words.
Laughter is good for you. Nine out of ten stand-up comedians recommend laughter in the face of intense stupidity.
See? This is why I’m not religious. I couldn’t possibly keep my mouth shut long enough to get along with everyone else.
There was a sound like a human yawn, and then the skull turned slightly toward me and asked, “What’s up, boss?””Evil’s afoot.””Well, sure,” Bob said, “because it refuses to learn the metric system. Otherwise it’d be up to a meter by now.
Home is where, when you go there and tell people to get out, they have to leave.
I have nightmares about hell, where all I do is add up numbers and try to have conversations with people like you.
Don’t call me a dinosaur. It isn’t fair to the dinosaurs. What did a dinosaur ever do to you?
Age is always advancing and I’m fairly sure it’s up to no good.
Apocalypse is a frame of mind.” [Nicodemus] said then. “A belief. A surrender to inevitability. It is a despair for the future. It is the death of hope.
I wouldn’t burden any decent system of faith by participating in it… I’m not agnostic. Just nonpartisan. Theological Switzerland, that’s me.
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.
Everyone is down on pain, because they forget something important about it: Pain is for the living. Only the dead don’t feel it.
Hope is a force of nature. Don’t let anyone tell you different.
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.
Knowledge is the ultimate weapon. It always has been.
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.
I am blind and limited. I would be a fool think myself wise. And so, not knowing what the universe means, I can only try to be responsible with the knowledge, the strength, and the time given to me. I must be true to my heart.
HOW CAN YOU KNOW THIS?” the Voice demanded.“I look at things and think about them,” Folly replied. “And use my intuition, of course, and deduction and induction, as well as any historical or theoretical models that seem to apply.
Isana felt her throat tighten. “We failed.” Serai lifted her chin and patted Isana’s arm firmly.”We have not yet succeeded. There is a difference.
It’s tough for magic to argue with physics, most of the time.
I sometimes give myself excellent advice. Occasionally, I even listen to it.
Bob, would you be willing to take on Evil Bob?”Bob’s eyes darted nervously. “I’d . . . prefer not to. I’d really, really prefer not to. You have no idea. That me was crazy. And buff. He worked out.
Let come the forces of night! We will stand!” “We will get the hell out of here is what we will do,” I muttered.
See, those who wield the primordial forces of creation have a long-running grudge with physics.
It’s all right to be afraid. You just don’t let it stop you from doing your job.
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.
My dear cousin has a very odd relationship with fear — though mostly she’s too busy to be bothered with it.
Fear is really quite tedious. She wanted to be rid of it as soon as possible.
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.
You don’t go walking into the proverbial lion’s den lightly. You start with a good breakfast.
I don’t care about whose DNA has recombined with whose. When everything goes to hell, the people who stand by you without flinching–they are your family.
Thomas was an annoying wiseass who tended to make everyone he met want to kill him, and when I have that much in common with someone, I can’t help but like him a little.
Maybe you know the monsters, Martin,” Murphy said quietly. “But I know the guy who stops them. And if they don’t return the girl, we’ll make them regret it.” She nodded at me and said, “Let’s go. We can watch Dresden kill the bitch.
I choose my battles, Dresden. Not you.” She looked up at me calmly. “Let me put this in terms that will get through your skull: My friend is going to save a child from monsters. I’m going with him. That’s what friends do, Harry.
The human mind is not a terribly logical or consistent place.
This is Waldo Butters, and his geek penis is longer and harder than any of ours put together.
I had this teacher who kept telling me that if I was ever in a fair fight, someone had made a mistake,” she said
I was seducing shepherdesses when you weren’t a twinkle in your great-grandcestor’s eyes. I think I know what I’m doing.
Do you have a little white dress? I’ve had this deep-seated nurse fantasy about you, Murphy.
Gruff,” I said, “I find myself largely clueless about why mortal women do what they do. It will take a wiser man than me to understand what’s in a fae woman’s mind.
Calliope was never still. Even when she was seemingly motionless, he could see her mind at work, sorting ideas, seeking solutions, cataloging the space around her. To see her beauty, one had to see her in motion.
It is often very useful for others to think you less intelligent than you are,” Benedict said, his tone amused. “It works particularly well against those who aren’t as intelligent as you in the first place.
Time after time, history demonstrates that when people don’t want to believe something, they have enormous skills of ignoring it altogether.
Being a wizard gives you more power than most, but it doesn’t change your heart. We’re all human. We’re all of us equally naked before the jaws of pain.
That woman,” Grimm said quietly, “drives me quite insane.”Kettle grunted. “Why’d you marry her, then?
When I started, I was pretty sure I was going to be writing some goofy little wizard novels that might make me some part-time money and would hopefully lead to something I could do better.
Because a sound tree doesn’t have bad roots, Amara. No enterprise of greatnessbegins with treachery, with lying to the people who trust and love you
In the void, there is no distinction of east and west.”Gwen blinked slightly at that. “I know all of those words, and yet when strung together like that I have no idea what they mean.
When everything goes to hell, the people who stand by you without flinching — they are your family.
There’s nothing that makes you more insane than family. Or more happy. Or more exasperated. Or more . . . secure.
All power is the same. Magic. Physical strength. Economic strength. Political strength. It all serves a single purpose-it gives its possessor a broader spectrum of choices. It creates alternative courses of action.
I hate what you represent.”… “Power without conviction.” Isana replied, her tone lifeless, matter of fact. “Ambition without conscience. Decent folk suffer at the hands of those like you.
The Shroud was old, and regarded as special, and people believed in it. That could be enough to give it a kind of power, all by itself.
Like “love,” “hope” is one of those ridiculously disproportional words that by all rights should be a lot longer.
Molly was arrested. Possession.” I blinked at him. “She was possessed?
HARRY DRESDEN—WIZARD Lost Items Found. Paranormal Investigations. Consulting. Advice. Reasonable Rates. No Love Potions, Endless Purses, Parties, or Other Entertainment
There’s no way to know what’s going to happen, Folly. But we’ll blood well be on our feet when it does.
There is but one reality, that is true — but the two of you experience it in slightly different ways. The older you get, I should think, the more you will come to understand that the universe is very much a looking glass, Miss Lancaster.
You beg fate to make your fears into reality, Aleran. But for the moment, they are only fears. They may come. If so, then face them and overcome them. Until then, pay them no mind. You have enough to think on.
Revenge is like sex, Mister Dresden. It’s best when it comes on slow, quiet, until it all seems inexorable.
Children have their own kind of power. When you’re teaching them, protecting them, you are more than you thought you could be. More understanding, more patient, more capable, more wise.
It gets kind of zen after awhile, life is a journey, time is a river, the door is ajar.
I think that men ought to treat women like something other than weaker men with breasts.
If you make some comment even obliquely alluding to menstruation or menopause and its effect on my judgment,” Murphy interrupted, “I will break your arm in eleven places.
Id me didn’t have to be concerned with long-term consequences. He was my instinctive, primitive self, driven by my most primal impulses. I wondered, briefly, if ‘id’ and ‘idiot’ came from the same root.
What is the point of having free will if one cannot occasionally spit in the eye of destiny?
I’ve always felt that the best whips and chains are in the mind. With a little creativity, the physical ones are hardly necessary.
You do everything by the book, like everybody else, you get the same results s everybody else.
If the nature of her foes would speak to the credit of Bridget’s death, then surely the nature of her allies would speak even more loudly about clearly of her life.
Magic comes from what is inside you. It is a part of you. You can’t weave together a spell that you don’t beleive in.
It rained toads the day the White Council came to town.
Remember who you are. This creature wants to take it from you. Do not let him.
Smiling always seems to annoy people more than actually insulting them. Or maybe I just have an annoying smile.
As far as the Council is concerned, the U.S. Wardens are a bunch of mushrooms.””Eh?””Kept in the dark and fed on bullshit.
Being here? With you? I’ve met my subconscious, and he’s not that sick.
Billy squinted at me. “Why are you letting them go?””Because they’re real.””How do you know?””The one I was holding crapped on my hand.
Seedy wasn’t a fair description for the place, because seeds imply eventual regrowth and renewal.
Thomas has the kind of whiter-than-white boyish grin that makes women’s panties spontaneously evaporate.
What’s with that?” Butters screamed, his voice high and frightened. “Just covering his head with his arms? Didn’t he see the lawyer in the movie?
Paranoid? Probably. But just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean that there isn’t an invisible demon about to eat your face.
I had about as much chance to do that as I did of backpacking my car to the top of Mount Rushmore.
Evil isn’t the real threat to the world. Stupid is just as destructive as Evil, maybe more so, and it’s a hell of a lot more common. What we really need is a crusade against Stupid. That might actually make a difference.
Most of the bad guys in the real world don’t know that they are bad guys. You don’t get a flashing warning sign that you’re about to damn yourself. It sneaks up on you when you aren’t looking.
That’s the problem with you nearly immortal types,” I said. “You couldn’t spot a pop culture reference if it skittered up and implanted an embryo down your esophagus.
The wacky thing about those bad guys is that you can’t count on them to be obvious. They forget to wax their mustaches and goatees, leave their horns at home, send their black hats to the dry cleaner’s. They’re funny like that.
You’re playing the creepy vibe a little hard,” I said. “Might as well go for broke, put on a black top hat and pipe in some organ music.
It doesn’t make you a monster to want, she said, her voice very gentle. It’s what you do with it that matters.
She studied my face for a long minute. “Are you going to help my mom?” It was a simple question. But how do you tell a child that things just aren’t that simple, that some questions don’t have simple answers–or any answer at all?
Harry,” she said quietly, “I know you must be angry.”I burn things to ash and smash holes in buildings when I’m angry,” I said. “I’m a couple of steps past that point right now.
It isn’t enough to stand up and fight darkness. You’ve got to stand apart from it, too. You’ve got to be different from it.
Honest. It’s almost always best to go with honest. It means you never have to worry about getting your story straight.
Coz,” he said. “You really must learn to shut your mouth from time to time. You’ll taste less shoe letter.
It’s one of the things that makes us different than they are, Harry. The blood on their hands does not make it right to bloody my own. My choices are measured against my own soul. Not against the stains on theirs.
He had traded the lives of people he did not know for those of men he did.That was, he supposed, human nature.
You predicted quick victory. Now it’s going to get hopelessly complicated. Jesus, don’t you know any better than that by now?
Things are not always as bad as they seem. Sometimes, the darkness only makes it easier to see the light.
There’s always, always a choice. My options might really, truly suck, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a choice.
Raw power doesn’t determine all that you can do with magic. Focus matters, too. The better your focus is, the better you are at putting your power in one place at the same time, the more you can get done.
Industry and determination, Mister Kettle, can transform the difficult into the routine,” Grimm said.
I sidestepped the vampire’s rush, and drove my half of the former blasting rod down at its back, Buffy-like.Maybe it works better on television.
You’re in America now,” I said. “Our idea of diplomacy is showing up with a gun in one hand and a sandwich in the other and asking which you’d prefer.
I swear to you, by my own stunning good looks and towering ego, that I am not lying to you.
Sometimes it isn’t easy to be sane, smart, and responsible. Sometimes it sucks. Sucks wang. Camel wang. But that doesn’t turn wrong into right or stupid into smart.
What the hell kind of Hell was this supposed to be?
Oh, I forgot to mention it: My brother is the kind of man whom women stalk. In cooperative packs.
It must be tempered with discipline. Ferocity is useless unless employed in the proper place . . .
There should be a rule against your own inner monologue throwing around that much sarcasm.
Just remember that you’re on my list, Marcone. Soon as I get done with all the other evils in this town, you won’t be the lesser of them anymore.”Marcone stared at me with half-lidded eyes and said, “Eek.
Maybe,” he said in a slow, rural drawl, “you could explain to me why I found you in the middle of an orgy.” “Well,” I said, “if you’re going to be in an orgy, the middle is the best spot, isn’t it.
You don’t have to make fun of it.””Actually I do,” I said. “I make fun of almost everything.
That’s Doctor Smart-ass. I didn’t spend eight years in insult college to be called Mister.
With a sense of humor like that, you could make a living as a garbage man anywhere in the country.
Nay, but prithee, with sprinkles ‘pon it instead,” I said solemnly, “and frosting of white.
I ask people impertinent questions. Hopefully turning up pertinent answers.
The only good thing about having your back to the wall is that it makes it really easy to choose which way you’re going to go.
Death is just one more Path. One you’ll come to in time.
I know you haven’t burned down any buildings in a while,” she said, “but if you start feeling the need…
Fire isn’t always an element of destruction. Classical alchemical doctrine teaches that it also has dominion over another province: change.
The last time I was at a supernatural shindig, I got poisoned and then everything there tried to kill me. So I burned the whole place to the ground.
Being called “dangerous” by a cat could mean a great many things, but it was generally delivered as something of a compliment.
Rowl felt sure that Bridget’s fragile feelings would be crushed if he denied her the pleasure of sharing her meat with him.
He is a cat, Miss Lancaster. Asking him such questions is an exercise in futility.
When a single cat let loose a war cry, it was an unsettling sound. When two cats suddenly wailed at each other in a similar fashion, it was downright unne
He had to give humans credit where it was due – they did seem to have a knack for building interesting places for cats to explore.
…after a pointless delay for the humans to collect all their toys and keepsakes, he was able to take his rightful place in Littlemouse’s arms and heard them all in the proper direction.
Mister didn’t come with me on cases, being above such trivial matters, but he found me pleasant company when I was at home and not moving around too much, except when he didn’t, in which case he went rambling
And since when had I become the guy that things happened to ten years ago?
Life, Tavi reflected, seldom makes a gift of what one expects or plans for.
People love dogs. You can never go wrong adding a dog to the story.
At one time in my life, a shapeshifted, demonically possessed maniac crashing through a window and trying to rip my face off would have come as an enormous and nasty surprise.But that time was pretty much in the past.
Laugh whenever you can. Keeps you from killing yourself when things are bad. That and vodka.
I had a vague memory of being that ridiculous at one time. Let he who hath never worn parachute pants cast the first stone.
BLARGLE SLORG NOTH HARGHLE FTHAGN! You know. The usual.
Her father had always said that a man could be fairly judged by the quality of his allies and that of his enemies.
Internet,” she said sagely. “Expanding the frontiers of adolescent knowledge.
Wait. You work for me?””I prefer to think of it as managing your incompetence.
People always equate beauty with good, but it just ain’t so.
Tropical trees had been planted throughout the room, along with bright flowering plants that were busy committing the olfactory floral equivalent of aggravated assault.
I mean it,” I said. “You’re in danger.””Relax, Harry. I’m not letting anyone lick me, and I’m not looking anyone in the eyes. It’s kind of like visiting New York.
I like to think of it less as embezzling and more as an involuntary goodwill contribution.
Do you know what I think?” Marcone said.”You think we should shoot Nicodemus in the back at the first opportunity and let Michael dismember him.””Yes.”I drew my gun. “Okay.
Everything was perfectly healthy and normal here in Denial Land.
Journeyman stared at Grimm as though Grimm had just suggested that the engineer should prostitute his mother to pirates.
Children run everywhere for a reason–it’s fun. Grown-ups can forget that sometimes.
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.
A technicality I’m prepared to hide wildly behind.
Wizards and computers get along about as well as flamethrowers and libraries.
Monsters are born of pain, and grief, and loss, and anger. Your heart is full of them.–“And?”And it makes you vulnerable.
I’d gone with my usual option. I was running through long tunnels filled with demons and monsters and nightmares, because it was easier than going to the gym.
Now I feel like James Bond. Suave and intelligent, breaking all the codes while looking fabulous.
I’m brilliant as well as skilled,” he said modestly. “It’s a great burden, all of that on top of my angelic good looks. But I try to soldier on as best I can.
Doesn’t matter how pretty you are. What’s important is how pretty you feel. No one feels pretty when they hear “no” often enough.