Jim Butcher

“I swear, this stupid town. Why does every hideous supernatural thing that happens happen here? I'm gone for a few months and augh. Be right back. Grssll frrrsl rassle mrrrfl.”

“Dude," I said, making the word a disgusted sound. "Single guys everywhere hate you. Starting with me.”

“Empty night, Harry. Didn't your little adventure in the lake teach you a damned thing?"I scowled some more. "Like what?""Like life is short," he [Thomas] said. "Like you don't know when it's going to end. Like some things, left unsaid, can't ever be said.”

“... she bowed just low enough to draw the young man's [Daniel Carpenter] eyes to her décolletage. He flushed and looked away sternly. After a second.Tough to blame the kid. I've been a young man. Boobs are near the center of the universe.”

“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.”

“Hell's bells, Morty," I said. "Next you'll be telling me that I didn't even meet his shade. That I deluded myself into deluding myself into deluding him into deluding me that I made the whole thing up.”

“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”

“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.”

“We followed him through the wealthy splendor of the house. Hardwood floors. Custom carved woodworking. Statues. Fountains. Suits of armor. Original painting, one of them a van Gogh. Stained-glass windows. Household staff in formal uniform. I kept expecting to come across a flock of peacocks roaming the halls, or maybe a pet cheetah in a diamond-studded collar.”

“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.”

“One thing you can count on when visiting the Nevernever: you don't ever get bored.”

“[Thomas said] "I have my cell phone on me. Try to call before things start exploding.""Maybe this time it'll be different. Maybe I'll work everything out through reason, diplomacy, dialogue, and mutual cooperation."Thomas eyed me.I tried to look wounded. "It could happen.”

“I'm not a doctor," Butters said.We'd done this dance several times. "You are the Mighty Butters," I said. "You can do anything.”

“Kincaid, evidently exhausted himself, drew a gun, took the safety off, placed it on his chest, and went to sleep too."It's cute," I whispered to Murphy. "He has a teddy Glock.”

“The Senior Council--""Couldn't find its heart if it had a copy of Grey's Anatomy, X-ray vision, and a stethoscope.”

“That was the damnedest thing about these demonic collaborator types. Even though they didn't work out and practice, they still got to run faster than we dedicated roadsters who actually sweated and strained for our ability to haul ass. Jerks.”

“Mister Hendricks [was] manning a rotating-barreled minigun fixed to the deck of the helicopter--completely illegally, of course.But then, I suppose that's really one major advantage to working with criminals. They just don't care about that sort of thing.”

“It took a freaking genius to put this together, Michael."I hefted my staff."Fortunately," I said, and took a two-handed swing at the nearest stand of slender, delicate crystal. It shattered with gratifying ease, and the encasing light around the greater circle began to waver and dissipate. "It only takes a monkey with a big stick to take it apart.”

“Molly was committing dinner by that time, aided and abetted by Sanya, who seemed to take some kind of grim Russian delight in watching train wrecks in progress.”

“She might be the Archive, but she's still a kid, Kincaid."He frowned and looked at me. "So?""So? Kids like cute."He blinked at me. "Cute?""Come on."I led him downstairs.On the lower level of the Oceanarium there's an inner ring of exhibits, too, containing both penguins and--wait for it--sea otters.I mean, come on, sea otters. They open abalone with rocks while floating on their backs.How much cuter does it get than small, fuzzy, floating, playful tool users with big, soft brown eyes?”

“Kincaid rounded the far corner. He was dressed in his customary black clothing again, fatigue pants, and a hunting jacket over body armor, and he had enough guns strapped to his body to outfit a terrorist cell, or a Texan nuclear family.”

“My brother threw up his hands. "What does a woman need to do, Harry? Rip her clothes off, throw herself on top of you, and shimmy while screaming, 'Do me, baby!'?" he shook his head. "Sometimes you're a frigging idiot.”

“I moved my feet in a vague shuffle, and remembered somewhere that when you walked, you moved them alternately. This improved our progress considerably.”

“...the cab of the truck heated up nicely, its windows fogging. I felt like a Dickens character. I thought about explaining that to Mouse, just to occupy my thoughts, but he was suffering enough without being forced to endure Dickens, even by proxy.”

“I declared her brain frozen and assumed command of the local Warden detachment, which was handy, since it consisted of only me anyway.”

“Troubleshooters?" Michael asked."When there's trouble," I told him, "they shoot it.”

“I will make Maggie safe. If the world burns because of that then so be it. Me and the kid will roast some marshmallows.”

“I folded my arms. “I don’t usually do stakeouts.”“I thought it might be a nice change of pace for you. All that knocking down of doors and burning down of buildings must get tiring.”“I don’t always knock down doors,” I said. “Sometimes it’s a wall.”

“She’d grown up in a strict household; she’d gone insane with freedom the minute she ran away and got out on her own.”

“Harry Dresden. I'm on a mission from God.”

“Everyone thinks magic is something different.”

“I’m a pessimist of the human condition, as a rule, but contemplating the future and how the Carpenter kids could contribute to it was the kind of thought that gave me hope for us all, despitemyself.Of course, I suppose someone must oncehave looked down upon young Lucifer and considered what tremendous potential he contained.”

“Erlking,” I told her. “Big-time bad guy. Wants to eat me.”“Why?” she asked.“Well. I met him,” I said.”

“...you look like you fell out of a crazy tree and hit every branch on the way down.”

“How long have you been a Sidhe-sicle?”

“...the Stone Table [was] a place that served as the OK Corral for the Faerie Courts when they decided to engage in diplomacy by means of murdering anyone on the other team.”

“My stomach rumbled. Like certain other portions of my anatomy, it had a tendency to become easily sidetracked, and to hell with little details like survival.”

“I kicked the door open, staff held ready to fight, and shouted, "And I'm all outta bubble gum!”

“Murphy, you rock! Go team Dresden!""Hey, I'm the one who rocks... Go team Murphy.”

“You're mad," the fallen angel said."Get me some Alka Seltzer and I'll foam at the mouth, too.”

“That's the worst part about the walking dead... the stains.”

“My wallet was getting even more anorexic than usual. At this rate I wouldn't be able to afford to protect mankind from the perils of black magic. Hells bells, that would be really embarrassing.”

“I can disintegrate a virgin's inhibitions at fifty paces, but I can't last two weeks at a job where I'm wearing a stupid hairnet and a paper hat.”

“Thomas looked like someone's painting of the forgotten Greek god of body cologne. He had long hair so dark that light itself could not escape it, and even fresh from the shower it was starting to curl. His eyes were the color of thunderclouds, and he never did a single moment of exercise to earn the gratuitous amount of ripple in his musculature. He was wearing jeans and no shirt--his standard household uniform. I once saw him answer the door to speak to a female missionary in the same outfit, and she'd assaulted him in a cloud of forgotten copies of The Watchtower. The tooth marks she left had been interesting.”

“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.”

“Over the course of many encounters and many years, I have successfully developed a standard operating procedure for dealing with big, nasty monsters.Run away.”

“The stupid part is that he isn't interested in... in getting serious. We get along. We have fun together. For him, that's enough. And it's so stupid for me to get hung up on him.”

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

“I... drew out the gun I kept at home, a great big old Dirty Harry Callahan number that weighed about seventy-five thousand pounds.”

“The venom," she [Susan] said quietly. "They call it their Kiss.""I guess I can't blame them. It sounds a lot more romantic than 'narcotic drool.”