72 Memorable Harry Dresden Quotes

In the realm of urban fantasy, few characters are as captivating as Harry Dresden, the witty and resilient wizard detective from Jim Butcher's "The Dresden Files" series. Through his adventures and trials, Dresden has captured the hearts of readers with his sharp humor, unyielding resolve, and profound insights into the human condition. Whether he’s facing supernatural threats or grappling with personal demons, Dresden’s words often strike a chord, offering both wisdom and entertainment. This collection of 72 memorable quotes delves into the essence of Harry Dresden, showcasing the moments that make him an iconic figure in modern fantasy literature. Prepare to journey through a tapestry of magic, danger, and sardonic wit as we explore the words that have left a lasting impact on fans worldwide.

1. “The building was on fire, and it wasn’t my fault.” - Jim Butcher

2. “I died. I died and someone made a clerical error and I am in Heaven.” - Jim Butcher

3. “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

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

5. “I'm sure that you psychotic necro-wannabes with delusions of godhood are all about sharing with your fellow maniacs.” - Jim Butcher

6. “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

7. “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

8. “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

9. “Life can be confusing. Good God, and how. Sometimes it seems like the older I get, the more confused I become. That seems ass-backwards. I thought I was supposed to be getting wiser. Instead, I just keep getting hit over the head with my relative insignificance in the greater scheme of the universe. Confusing, life. But it beats the hell out of the alternative.” - Jim Butcher

10. “Rule number one of the wizarding business. Never let them see you sweat. People expect us to know things. It can be a big advantage. Don’t screw it up by looking like you’re as confused as everyone else. Bad for the image.” - Jim Butcher

11. “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.” - Jim Butcher

12. “Bring it, Darth Bathrobe!” - Jim Butcher

13. “But… all I said was that I was scared." After what you got to experience? That's smart, kid," I said. "I'm scared, too. Every time something like this happens, it scares me. But being strong doesn't get you through. Being smart does. I've beaten people and things who were stronger than I was, because they didn't use their heads, or because I used what I had better than they did. It isn't about muscle, kiddo, magical or otherwise. It's about your attitude. About your mind." She nodded slowly and said, "About doing things for the right reasons." You don't throw down like this just because you're strong enough to do it," I said. "You do it because you don't have much choice. You do it because it's unacceptable to walk away, and still live with yourself later." She stared at me for a second, and then her eyes widened. "Otherwise, you're using power for the sake of using power." I nodded. "And power tends to corrupt. It isn't hard to love using it, Molly. You've got to go in with the right attitude or…" Or the power starts using you," she said. She'd heard the argument before, but this was the first time she said the words slowly, thoughtfully, as if she'd actually understood them, instead of just parroting them back to me. Then she looked up. "That's why you do it. Why you help people. You're using the power for someone other than yourself.” - Jim Butcher

14. “But the only way never to do the wrong thing is never to do anything.” - Jim Butcher

15. “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

16. “You rush a miracle worker, you get lousy miracles!” - Jim Butcher

17. “Hell’s bells. I don’t call him the Fist of God as a pet name, folks.” - Jim Butcher

18. “Where instinct fails, intellect must venture.” - Jim Butcher

19. “Thank God for wisecracks.” - Jim Butcher

20. “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

21. “Harry Dresden. Saving the world, one act of random destruction at a time.” - Jim Butcher

22. “Something like this will test you like nothing else," Mac said. "You're going to find out who you are, Harry. You're going to find out which principles you'll stand by to your death--and which lines you'll cross." He took my empty glass away and said, "You're heading into the badlands. It'll be easy to get lost.” - Jim Butcher

23. “Life is too short, Harry. And there's nowhere near enough joy in it. If you find it, grab it. Before it's gone.” - Jim Butcher

24. “I'm trying to be diplomatic. The wisdom of my ass is well-known. If I didn't lip off to them, after shooting my mouth off to faerie queens and Vampire Courts--plural, Courts--demigods and demon lords, they might get their feelings hurt.” - Jim Butcher

25. “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

26. “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

27. “Hope is a force of nature. Don't let anyone tell you different.” - Jim Butcher

28. “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.And Mouse said, in what sounded to me like perfectly understandable English, "That bitch.” - Jim Butcher

29. “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

30. “There’s nothing that makes you more insane than family. Or more happy. Or more exasperated. Or more . . . secure.” - Jim Butcher

31. “Every soul is special. They’re all beautiful. They’re all far more significant than anyone on this rock realizes. I think when people are at their best, they’re acting in accordance with their soul. The ones who have gone bad don’t have bad souls. They’ve just given up on keeping in touch with them.” - Jim Butcher

32. “...The next time I opened my eyes, I was in the morgue.This, all by itself, is enough to really ruin your day.I was lying on the examining table, and Butters, complete with his surgical gown and his tray of autopsy instruments, stood over me.'I'm not dead!' I sputtered. 'I'm not dead!'- Harry Dresden, Death Masks, Jim Butcher” - Jim Butcher

33. “You need to know where to go,' Sanya said.'Yes,''And you are going to consult four large pizzas for guidance.''Yes,' I said....'There is, I think, humour here which does not translate well from English into sanity.''That's pretty rich coming from the agnostic Knight of the Cross with a holy Sword who takes his orders from an archangel.' I said.- Harry Dresden & Sanya, Changes, Jim Butcher” - Jim Butcher

34. “So in addition to a feisty new Black Court partner in the war dance between the Council and the Vampire Courts, I also got angry lust bunny movies stars, deadly curses, and a thoroughly embarrassing job as my investigative cover.Oh, and bean curd pizza, which is just wrong.What a mess.I made a mental note: The next time I saw Thomas, I was going to punch him right in the nose.” - Jim Butcher

35. “I've done smarter things in my life. Once, for example, I threw myself out of a moving car in order to take on a truckload of lycanthropes singlehandedly."~Harry Dresden” - Jim Butcher

36. “I was seducing shepherdesses when you weren't a twinkle in your great-grandcestor's eyes. I think I know what I'm doing.” - Jim Butcher

37. “I'd made the vampire cry. Great. I felt like a real superhero. Harry Dresden, breaker of monsters' hearts.” - Jim Butcher

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

39. “A man's magic demonstrates what sort of person he is, what is held most deeply inside of him. There is no truer gauge of a man's character than the way in which he employs his strength, his power. I was not a murderer. I was not like Victor Sells. I was Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden. I was a wizard. Wizards control their power. They don't let it control them. And wizards don't use magic to kill people. They use it to discover, to protect, to mend, to help. Not to destroy.” - Jim Butcher

40. “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

41. “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

42. “Sullen monosyllabism, a sure sign of sleep deprivation.” - Jim Butcher

43. “Jobs are a part of life. Maybe you've heard of the concept. It's called work? See, what happens is that you suffer through doing annoying and humiliating things until you get paid not enough money. Like those Japanese game shows, only without all the glory.” - Jim Butcher

44. “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.” - Jim Butcher

45. “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

46. “We have now left Reason and Sanity Junction. Next stop, Looneyville.” - Jim Butcher

47. “I love you." Why it worked right then, why the webbing of my godmother's spell frayed as though the words had been an open flame, I don't know. I haven't found any explanation for it. There aren't any magical words, really. The words just hold the magic. They give it a shape and a form, they make it useful, describe the images within. I'll say this, though: Some words have a power that has nothing to do with supernatural forces. They resound in the heart and mind, they live long after the sounds of them have died away, they echo in the heart and the soul. They have power, and that power is very real. Those three words are good ones.” - Jim Butcher

48. “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

49. “Dresden’s not gone,” I said. I touched a hand lightly to my brow. “He’s here.” I touched Will’s bare chest, on the left side. “Here. Without him, without what he’s done over the years, you and I would never have been able to pull this off.”“No,” he agreed. “Probably not. Definitely not.”“There are a lot of people he’s taught. Trained. Defended. And he’s been an example. No single one of us can ever be what he was. But together, maybe we can.” - Jim Butcher

50. “Star Trek?” I asked her. “Really?” “What?” she demanded, bending unnaturally black eyebrows together. “There are two kinds of people in the universe, Molly,” I said. “Star Trek fans and Star Wars fans. This is shocking.” She sniffed. “This is the post-nerd-closet world, Harry. It’s okay to like both.” “Blasphemy and lies,” I said.” - Jim Butcher

51. “There's power in the night. There's terror in the darkness. Despite all our accumulated history, learning, and experience, we remember. We remember times when we were too small to reach the light switch on the wall, and when darkness itself was enough to make us cry out in fear....” - Jim Butcher

52. “Sticks and stones and small caliber bullets may break my bones... Words will never, et cetera.” - Jim Butcher

53. “I didn't know this before, but as it turns out, Tyrannosaurs can really haul ass.” - Jim Butcher

54. “You're one hell of a woman, Molly,” I said. “Thank you.” - Jim Butcher

55. “No,” she said. “You are not Patrick Swayze. I am not Demi Moore.” She touched a switch on the little box and it started ticking. “And this sure as hell isn't pottery class.” - Jim Butcher

56. “My friend is going to save a little girl from monsters. I am going with him. That's what friends do.” - Jim Butcher

57. “Unicorns," I said. "Very dangerous. You go first.” - Jim Butcher

58. “Seedy wasn't a fair description for the place, because seeds imply eventual regrowth and renewal.” - Jim Butcher

59. “There should be a rule against your own inner monologue throwing around that much sarcasm.” - Jim Butcher

60. “My office is in a building in midtown Chicago. It's an older building, and not in the best of shape, especially since there was that problem with the elevator last year. I don't care what anyone says, that wasn't my fault. when a giant scorpion the size of an Irish wolfhound is tearing its way through the roof of your elevator car, you get real willing to take desperate measures.” - Jim Butcher

61. “No matter where you go, there you are. [- Uriel to Harry Dresden]” - Jim Butcher

62. “Let's get something clear up front. I'm not Harry Dresden. Harry's a wizard. A genuine, honest-to-goodness wizard. He's Gandalf on crack and an IV of Red Bull, with a big leather coat and a .44 revolver in his pocket. He'll spit in the eye of gods and demons alike if he thinks it needs to be done, and to hell with the consequences -- and yet somehow my little brother manages to remain a decent human being. I'll be damned if I know how. But then, I'll be damned regardless. My name is Thomas Raith, and I'm a monster.” - Jim Butcher

63. “EASTER HAS BEEN CANCELED - THEY FOUND THE BODY” - Jim Butcher

64. “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.” - Jim Butcher

65. “Thwart," I said. "To prevent someone from accomplishing something by means of visiting gratuitous violence upon his smarmy person.""I'm pretty sure that isn't the definition." Sarissa said."It is today.” - Jim Butcher

66. “Karrin, eh?" Thomas asked.I nodded. "She's real serious about order. A man dying, she can understand. A man coming back. That's different.""Isn't she Catholic?" Thomas asked. "Don't they have a guy?” - Jim Butcher

67. “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.” - Jim Butcher

68. “Rest. Heal. Sleep. I shall most likely kill you on the morrow.”“You? A Princess Bride quote?” I croaked.“What is that?” she asked.” - Jim Butcher

69. “Life is full of toil, sacrifice, and pain, and from the time we stop growing, we know that we've begun dying. We watch helplessly as year by year, our bodies age and fail, while our survival instincts compel us to keep on going-which means living with the terrifying knowledge that ultimately death is inescapable.” - Jim Butcher

70. “Magic. It can get a guy killed.” - Jim Butcher

71. “I’d had a key to the marina’s locks at one time, but I’d lost track of it when I got shot, drowned, died, got revived into a coma, haunted my friends for a while, and then woke up in Mab’s bed. (My life. Hell’s bells.)” - Jim Butcher

72. “Tiny," Sanya rumbled to Michael, clenching a demonstrative fist. "But fierce.” - Jim Butcher