Best 689 quotes of Jim Butcher on MyQuotes

Hospital waits are bad ones. The fact that they happen to pretty much all of us, sooner or later, doesn't make them any less hideous.

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.

I admit," Morgan said with another withering look, "it's no donut.

I always considered myself a loner. I mean, not like a poor-me, Byron-esque, I-should-have-brought-a-swimming-buddy loner. I mean the sort of person who doesn’t feel too upset about the prospect of a weekend spent seeing no one, and reading good books on the couch. It wasn’t like I was a people hater or anything. I enjoyed activities and the company of friends. But they were a side dish. I always thought I would be happy without them.

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.

I ask people impertinent questions. Hopefully turning up pertinent answers.

I believe that there's a cloud for every silver lining,' I said.

I brought the Beetle to life with a roar. Well. Not really a roar. A Volkswagen Bug doesn't roar. But it sort of growled.

I can't believe I'm about to say this," I said. "So think real careful about where this is coming from. Have you people ever considered *talking* when you've got a problem?

I checked my gear, my pockets, my shoelaces, and realized that I had crossed the line between making sure I was ready and trying to postpone the inevitable.

I checked the icebox. The faeries usually brought some sort of food to stock the icebox and the pantry when they cleaned, but they could have mighty odd ideas about what constituted a healthy diet. One time I'd opened the pantry and found nothing but boxes and boxes and boxes of Fruit Loops. I had a near-miss with diabetes, and Thomas, who was never quite sure where the food had come from, declared that I had clearly been driven Fruit Loopy.

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.

I could buy that she would murder me in a fit of rage, poison me out of flaming jealousy, or bomb my car out of sheer, stubborn pique. But she would never do it and feel nothing.

I'd been in hairier situations than this one. Actually, it's sort of depressing, thinking how many times I'd been in them. But if experience had taught me anything, it was this: No matter how screwed up things are, they can get a whole lot worse.

I don't have a muse. I have a mortgage.

I didn't know this before, but as it turns out, Tyrannosaurs can really haul ass.

I didn't want to believe that killing was deep inside of me. I didn't want to think about the part of me that took a dark joy in gathering all the power it could and using it as I saw fit, everything else be damned. There was power to be had in hatred, too, in anger and in lust, in selfishness and in pride. And I knew that there was some dark corner of me that would enjoy using magic for killing—and then long for more. That was black magic, and it was easy to use. Easy and fun. Like Legos.

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

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

I do not need the written code of a spiritual belief to act like a decent human being.

I don't believe in faeries!

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.

I felt my face stretch in a victorious smile. The potion had worked. I was inside. I had to suppress an urge to break into a soft shoe routine. Sometimes being able to use magic was so cool.

If I need you I'll give you a signal.' What signal?" I'll imitate the scream of a terrified little girl

If I stay, they'll kill me... If I go, at least everything that wants me dead won't be taking it personally.

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

I followed him through the halls of the enormous church until we got to the staff's kitchen. He went to the fridge, opened it, and came out with a bottle of bourbon. He poured some into a coffee cup, drank it down, and poured some more. He offered me the bottle. No, thanks. Aren't you supposed to drink vodka? Aren't you supposed to wear a pointy hat and ride on a flying broomstick? Touche, I said.

I found him in a Dumpster one day when he was a kitten and he promptly adopted me. Despite my struggles, Mister had been an understanding soul, and I eventually came to realize that I was a part of his little family, and by his gracious consent was allowed to remain in his apartment. Cats. Go figure.

If you can't manage courtesy, try silence.

If you can't stop the bad thoughts from coming to visit, at least you can make fun of them while they're hanging around.

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.

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.

If your opponent has you by fifty pounds, winning a fight against him is a dubious proposition, at best. If your opponent has you by eight thousand and fifty pounds, you’ve left the realm of combat and enrolled yourself in Road-kill 101. Or possibly in a Tom and Jerry cartoon.

If you shoot, I will kill her before I die." Yes," Kitai said in a patient tone. "Which is why I have not shot you. Yet.

Ignorance is more than bliss, it's freaking orgasmic ecstacy!

I got the sneaking suspicion that the vampire was a couple of Peeps short of an Easter basket.

I grunted. It's something I picked up over a fifteen-year career in law enforcement. Men have managed to create a complex and utterly impenetrable secret language consisting of monosyllabic sounds and partial words—and they are apparently too thick to realize it exists. Maybe they really are from Mars. I'd been able to learn a few Martian phrases over time, and one of the useful ones was the grunt that meant "I acknowledge that I've heard what you said; please continue.

I guess maybe you don’t get to be the Merlin of the White Council by saving up frequent-flier miles

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.

I heard someone walk out of the alley behind me, and my body went tense and tight, despite my weariness.  Then a young woman's voice said, in a passable British accent, "The Little People are easily startled, but they'll soon be back.  And in greater numbers."     I sagged in sudden, exhausted relief.  The bad guys hardly ever quote Star Wars.

I just stood there staring, because while I've seen a lot of weird things, I hadn't ever seen that.

I kept a straight face while my inner Neanderthal spluttered and then went on a mental rampage through a hypothetical produce section, knocking over shelves and spattering fruit everywhere in sheer frustration, screaming, 'JUST TELL ME WHOSE SKULL TO CRACK WITH MY CLUB, DAMMIT!

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 know it's not thematically in tune with my new job and all, but I find it effective. Build a man a fire and he's warm for a day," I say. "But set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life. Tao of Pratchett. I live by it.

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.

I like dogs. They give Mister something to snack on.

I like to stay cozy with my paranoia, not pass her around to my friends and family.

I like to think of it less as embezzling and more as an involuntary goodwill contribution.

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

I love watching him think," Maeve told Lily. "You can almost hear that poor little hamster running and running on its wheel.