Jim Butcher Quotes

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

— Jim Butcher

An errand is getting a tank of gas or picking up a carton of milk or something. It is not getting chased by flying purple pyromaniac gorillas hurling incendiary poo!

— Jim Butcher

“A bolt of warmth, fierce with joy and pride and gratitude, flashed through me like sudden lightning. 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. And they were my heroes.”

— Jim Butcher

“Nobody can be bad at everything. There's no such thing as a perfect screwup.”

— Jim Butcher

“Sometimes I forget how much I like riding the bike."
Most chicks do," I said. "Roar of the engine and so on."
Murphy's blue eyes glittered with annoyance and anticipation. "Pig. You really enjoy dropping all women together in the same demographic, don't you?"
It's not my fault all women like motorcycles, Murph. They're basically huge vibrators. With wheels.”

— Jim Butcher

“But they were doughnuts of darkness. Evil, damned doughnuts, tainted by the spawn of darkness . . . . . which could obviously be redeemed only by passing through the fiery, cleansing inferno of a wizardly digestive tract.”

— Jim Butcher

“Tavi grinned. "Are you with me?"
"The plan is insane," Ehren said. "YOU are insane." He looked around the inside of the tent. "I'll need some pants.”

— Jim Butcher

Shame, child, is for those who fail to live up to the ideal of what they believe they should be." She waved her hand. "It was shame that drove me to my queen, to beseech her aid." Her long, delicate fingers idly moved to the streaks of white in her otherwise flawless red tresses. "But she showed me the way back to myself, through exquisite pain, and now I am here to watch over my dear godson
and the rest of you, as long as it is quite convenient."
Spooky death Sidhe lady," Molly said. "Now upgraded to spooky, crazy death Sidhe lady.

— Jim Butcher

“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.”

— Jim Butcher

“Do you have a little white dress? I've had this deep-seated nurse fantasy about you, Murphy.”

— Jim Butcher

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.

— Jim Butcher

Rain was coming down in sheets. I could hear it, on the concrete outside and on the old building above me. It creaked and swayed in the spring thunderstorm and the wind, timbers gently flexing, wise enough with age to give a little, rather than put up stubborn resistance until they broke. I could probably stand to learn something from that.

— Jim Butcher

“I grunted. "She's not a delicate princess," I said. "She's a warrior. Warriors have enemies. Sometimes warriors get hurt." I felt my jaws clench. "And then their friends even things up.”

— Jim Butcher

Things are not always as bad as they seem. Sometimes, the darkness only makes it easier to see the light.

— Jim Butcher

The distinction between good and evil is meaningless if one does not have the freedom to choose between them.

— Jim Butcher

“My imagination needs therapy.”

— Jim Butcher

“Empty knight, Harry! Morgan? Morgan? What's wrong with your head?" Thomas shrugged.
"I don't think he did it."
Morgan wouldn't cross the street to piss on you if you were on fire!" Thomas growled, "He's finally getting his comeuppance. Why should you lift a finger?”

— Jim Butcher

“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.”

— Jim Butcher

Anyway, my office is small - one room, but on the corner, with a couple of windows. The sign on the door reads, simply, HARRY DRESDEN, WIZARD. Just inside the door is a table, covered with pamphlets with titles like: Magic and You, and Why Witches Don't Sink Any Faster Than Anyone Else - a Wizard's Perspective. I wrote most of them. I think it's important for we practitioners of the Art to keep up a good public image. Anything to avoid another Inquisition.

— Jim Butcher

Mort drove one of those little hybrid cars that, when not running on gasoline, was fueled by idealism. It was made out of crepe paper and duct tape and boasted a computer system that looked like it could have run the NYSE and NORAD, with enough attention left over to play tic-tac-toe. Or possibly Global Thermonuclear War.

— Jim Butcher

Faeries like pizza?" I asked.
"Oh, Harry," Toot said breathlessly. "Haven't you ever had pizza before?"
"Of course I have," I said.
Toot looked wounded. "And you didn't share?

— Jim Butcher

There was a roar from the shadow-tiger mask around the Harley, and Murphy swept up alongside the boat. I leapt down onto the back of the bike in a single smooth motion, which I felt was cool, and landed with too much of my weight on my genitals, which I felt was not.

— Jim Butcher

The worst lies are almost always silence-or else truth, tainted with just enough deception to rot it to the core.

— Jim Butcher

“Thomas grunted. "Might have been smarter for them to have left you alone. Now you know something."
I made an exasperated sound. "Yes. Those fools. By trying to kill me, they've revealed their very souls. I have them now."
Thomas gave me a steady look. "Being Mab's bitch has made you a pessimist."
"I am not a pessimist," I said loftily. "Though that can't last."
That made Thomas grin. "Nice."
"Thank you.”

— Jim Butcher

“Nicodemus is a murderous murdering murderer ...”

— Jim Butcher

“I looked from the gadget-readied spear and body armor to my slender staff of plain old wood and leather duster.
"My dick is better than your dick," I said.”

— Jim Butcher

“I hate it when the real world ignores a perfectly logical, rational assumption.”

— Jim Butcher

“I'm a disciple of the Tao of Peter Parker, obviously,”

— Jim Butcher

“Like life is short," he said. "Like you don't know when it's going to end. Like some things, left unsaid, can't ever be said.”

— Jim Butcher

“I don't know the good or the evil of the thing. That's something that only you mortals worry about.”

— Jim Butcher

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

— Jim Butcher

“I look around me, man . . . I'm trying to do what I've always done, to protect people, to keep them safe from the monsters-only I'm pretty sure I'm one of them. I can't figure out where I could have . . . what else I might have done . . ." I swallowed. "I'm lost. I know every step I took to get here, and I'm still lost." "Harry . . ." "And my friends," I said. "Even Thomas . . . I was stuck out on that island of the damned for a year. A year, Michael, and they only showed up a handful of times. Just Murphy and Thomas, maybe half a dozen times in more than a year. It's just a goddamned boat ride away, forty minutes. People drive farther than that to go to the movies. They know what I'm turning into. They don't want to watch it happening to me.”

— Jim Butcher

“I nodded to her. Then I eyed Maeve. "What about you? Holding anything back?"
"I want to take you to my bower, wizard," Maeve said, and licked her lips. "I want to do things to you that give you such pleasure your brain bleeds."
"Uh," I said.
Her foxlike smile sharpened. "Also," she said, "my people are about to attempt to kill you.”

— Jim Butcher

“Uriel smiled. "Collin, like the others, is wit me because he is not yet prepared to face what comes next. When he is, he'll take that step. For now, he is not."
"When you say what comes next, what do you mean, exactly?"
"The part involving words like forever, eternity, and judgment."
"Oh," I said. "What Comes Next.”

— Jim Butcher

Thomas took a slow breath. His silver eyes grew even brighter. It was creepy as hell and fascinating. "I was hoping you knew a good spot. I sure as hell can't take him to my place."
Molly's voice sharpened. "I don't even have a place," she said. "I still live at my parents' house."
"Less whining," Thomas said, his voice cool. "More telling me a place to take him where he won't be killed.

— Jim Butcher

“I stared at MacFinn for a long moment. I believed that he was telling me the truth. That he didn't have much control, if any, over his actions when he transformed. Though it occurred to me that if he wanted someone dead, he could probably point his monster-self in the right direction before he lost control.
Note to self: Do not cut MacFinn off in traffic.”

— Jim Butcher

“Could just be Chicago. Which can be just as scary as Mab, some days.”

— Jim Butcher

“Harry," Bob said. "Stars and skies, you're all right!" He hesitated for a second, and then said, "And looking grim. Even dressed in boxers with yellow duckies on them." I glanced down, and did my best to picture a vampire wearing boxers with yellow duckies. Or a wizard wearing yellow duckies, for that matter.”

— Jim Butcher

“Nameless hideous monsters are freaking terrifying. You always fear what you don't know, what you don't understand, and the first step to having understanding of something is to know what to call it. It's a habit of mine to give names to anything I wind up interacting with if it doesn't have one readily available. Names have power
magically, sure, but far more important, they have psychological power. Something horrible with a name holds less power over you, less terror, than something horrible without one.”

— Jim Butcher

“Heroines in dramas, Bridget felt, really ought to have more sense.”

— Jim Butcher

“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.”

— Jim Butcher

He stalked through the narrow streets and wound his way down an alley between two buildings to an old, rotting wooden door. He paused to knock at it, three measured strokes followed by two quick ones, and it opened at once. Her batman, Sark, stood on the other side of it. The fellow reminded Espira of a hunting spider-he was warriorborn, tall, gaunt, with long, slender limbs and hands that seemed a little too large for the rest of him. His hair was black and short, and covered his face, head, neck, and what showed of his hands in a sparse, spidery fuzz. Sark had the feline eyes of his kind, one of them set at a slight angle to the other, so that Espira could never be sure precisely where the man was looking.

— Jim Butcher

“Try not to look like that," Ascher said under breath, after we were in the elevator.
"Like what?" I asked.
"Like you're expecting ninjas to leap out of the trash cans. This is a party."
"Everyone knows there's no such things as ninjas," I scoffed. "But it will be something. Count on it.”

— Jim Butcher

“You learn very quickly not to make mistakes given the correct incentive to avoid them.”

— Jim Butcher

“You're dead, son," Jack said. "Cheer is contraindicated.”

— Jim Butcher

Christ, Harry," Murphy said quietly. "No one just starts giggling and wearing black and signs up to become a villainous monster. How the hell do you think it happens?" She shook her head, her eyes pained. "It happens to people. Just people. They make questionable choices, for what might be very good reasons. They make choice after choice, and none of them is slaughtering roomfuls of saints, or murdering hundreds of baby seals, or rubber-room irrational. But it adds up. And then one day they look around and realize that they're so far over the line that they can't remember where it was." I

— Jim Butcher

“Bikers don't wear all that leather around simply for the fashion value or possible felony assaults. It's handy for keeping the highway from ripping the skin from your flesh should you wind up losing control of the bike and sliding along the asphalt for a while.”

— Jim Butcher

“But a century from now, your mortal associates will be rotting in the earth, whereas, barring amputation or radical shifts in fashion, you will still be putting your pants on one leg at a time.”

— Jim Butcher

“Nice father figure. Him and Bill Cosby.”

— Jim Butcher

“Give it to 'em!" Take 'em down!" First Aleran!" Kick their furry
" Assault formation!”

— Jim Butcher