Top 100 Dresden's Quotes
#1. After the near-total destruction of Dresden in the Allied fire-bombing of February 1945, few people believed that its beauty would ever return. Dresden's slow but steady comeback was thus met with great relief.
Gunter Blobel
#2. Attention, shoppers! Discount specials on Harry Dresden's life. Slightly used, no refunds, limit one per customer. Shop smart. Shop S-Mart.
Jim Butcher
#3. Dresden: of all German cities, Smiley's favourite. He had loved its architecture, its odd jumble of medieval and classical buildings, sometimes reminiscent of Oxford, its cupolas, towers, and spires, its copper-green roofs shimmering under a hot sun.
John Le Carre
#4. 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
#5. 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.
Jim Butcher
#6. 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.
Jim Butcher
#7. So the librarians at UCLA worked very hard to find another copy of Villacorta's rendition of the Dresden Codex, and lent it to me.
Richard Feynman
#8. 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
#9. 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.
Jim Butcher
#10. 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
#11. I saw the destruction of Dresden. I saw the city before and then came out of an air-raid shelter and saw it afterward, and certainly one response was laughter. God knows, that's the soul seeking some relief.
Kurt Vonnegut
#12. Ack! I said.
Fearless master of the witty dialogue, that's me.
Jim Butcher
#13. Marcone's scum, but he's his own scum -Harry Dresden
Jim Butcher
#14. After a few minutes, Molly came partway up the short ladder to the bridge and stopped. "Do I need to ask permission to come up there or something?"
"Why would you?" I asked.
She considered. "It's what they do on Star Trek?
Jim Butcher
#15. Lacuna peered at my shirt. "Aer-O-Smith. Arrowsmith. Does the shirt belong to your weapon dealer?"
"No."
"Then why do you wear the shirt of someone else's weapon dealer?
Jim Butcher
#16. 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
#17. 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.
Jim Butcher
#18. 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
#19. I made a sandwich out of things. I'm an American. We can eat anything as long as it's between two pieces of bread.
Jim Butcher
#20. 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
#21. You want to play head games?" Molly snarled, her blue eyes blazing. "Let's go.
Jim Butcher
#22. 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
#23. I can't tell you how many jobs I've done without a hitch since the last time I saw you, Dresden. You walk through the door and everything goes to hell." "That's embroidered on my towels, actually," I said.
Jim Butcher
#24. 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.
Jim Butcher
#25. Yeah, they look great, but that isn't a fantasy come true, Harry. That's a wood chipper in Playboy bunny clothing.
Jim Butcher
#26. Billy switched on a floor lamp. The light from the single source threw the baroque detailing of Montana's body into sharp relief. Billy was reminded of fantastic architecture in Dresden, before it was bombed.
Kurt Vonnegut
#27. Hell's bells. I don't call him the Fist of God as a pet name, folks.
Jim Butcher
#28. Bigots see something they expect and then they stop thinking about what is in front of them. It's probably how they got to be bigots in the first place.
Jim Butcher
#29. 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.
Jim Butcher
#30. Son. Everyone dies alone. That's what it is. It's a door. It's one person wide. When you go through it, you do it alone. But it doesn't mean you've got to be alone before you go through the door. And believe me, you aren't alone on the other side.
Jim Butcher
#31. I admit," Morgan said with another withering look, "it's no donut.
Jim Butcher
#32. You don't go walking into the proverbial lion's den lightly. You start with a good breakfast.
Jim Butcher
#33. You don't take your cat with you to go bird shopping. Not because the cat isn't polite, but because he's a cat.
Jim Butcher
#34. 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
#35. I am somewhat proud of this," Mab's cold voice said. "To be sure, the White Christ never suffered so long or so terribly as did this traitor. Three days on a tree. Hardly enough time for a prelude. When it came to visiting agony, the Romans were hobbyists.
Jim Butcher
#36. We accepted their congratulations with good grace and proper modesty, but I felt then as I feel now, that I would have given my life to save Dresden for the world's generations to come. That is how everyone should feel about every city on earth.
Kurt Vonnegut
#37. [Mouse is] with us. The dog is a handicap-assist animal."
The kid lifted his eyebrows.
"My mouth is partially paralyzed," I said. "It makes it hard for me to read. He's here to help me with the big words. Tell me if I'm supposed to push or pull on doors, that kind of thing.
Jim Butcher
#39. 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
#40. There's always, always a choice. My options might really, truly suck, but that doesn't mean there isn't a choice.
Jim Butcher
#41. My favorite band at the moment is the Dresden Dolls, they're from Boston. It's a guy and a girl. She plays piano and he plays the drums and she also sings. You can find them on the web they're incredible.
Gerard Way
#42. He's Gandalf on crack and an IV of Red Bull, with a big leather coat and a .44 revolver in his pocket.
Jim Butcher
#43. The married thing. Sometimes I look at it and feel like someone from a Dickens novel, standing outside in the cold and staring in at Christmas dinner. Relationships hadn't ever really worked for me. I think it's had something to do with all the demons, ghosts, and human sacrifice.
Jim Butcher
#44. My friend is going to save a little girl from monsters. I am going with him. That's what friends do.
Jim Butcher
#45. Uh, the Council," I said. "Big shock, they aren't helping."
Murphy looked like she might be asleep, but she snorted. "So we're on our own."
Yeah."
Good. It's more familiar.
Jim Butcher
#47. It's not everyone who can teach you something about faith without saying a word to do it.
Jim Butcher
#48. I told you," Molly said, never looking toward me. "It's in the past. Leave it there."
"You listening to my head, kiddo?"
Her mouth twitched. "Only when I want to hear the roar of the ocean.
Jim Butcher
#49. Pain is a byproduct of life. That's the truth. Life sometimes sucks. That's true for everyone. But if you don't face the pain and the suck, you don't ever get the other things either. Laughter. Joy. Love. Pain passes, but those things are worth fighting for. Worth dying for.
Jim Butcher
#50. 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
#51. 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
#52. 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
#53. You can't plan for everything or you never get started in the first place.
Jim Butcher
#54. I flicked a comb through my wet hair, for all the good it would do, and said, "How do I look?"
"Mostly human," she said.
"That's what I was going for.
Jim Butcher
#55. 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
#56. 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
#57. Knowledge is the ultimate weapon. It always has been.
Jim Butcher
#58. The building was on fire, and it wasn't my fault.
Jim Butcher
#59. Because nothing says flattery like a gun to the head.
Jim Butcher
#60. 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
#61. Hell's holy stars and freaking stones shit bells.
Jim Butcher
#62. I have been beaten, but I have not yielded. I'm not going to start yielding now.
Jim Butcher
#63. Let me get this straight," he said. "You'll give me all the kingdoms of the Earth if I just bow down and do one act of worship for you?" Dresden
James S.A. Corey
#64. 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.
Jim Butcher
#65. Laugh whenever you can. Keeps you from killing yourself when things are bad. That and vodka.
Jim Butcher
#66. I love being a wizard. Every day is like Disneyland.
Jim Butcher
#67. Injun Joe studied the body for a moment, his eyes sad. Then he said, "I'd rather go in my sleep, I think." He glanced back at me. "What about you?"
"I want to be stepped on by an elephant while having sex with identical triplet cheerleaders," I said.
Jim Butcher
#68. It doesn't make you a monster to want, she said, her voice very gentle. It's what you do with it that matters.
Jim Butcher
#69. Hope is a force of nature. Don't let anyone tell you different.
Jim Butcher
#70. A succubus on the set. Strike that, the health-conscious kid sister made it two ... succubuses. Succubusees? Succubi? Stupid Latin correspondence course.
Jim Butcher
#71. 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.
Jim Butcher
#72. I think that men ought to treat women like something other than weaker men with breasts.
Jim Butcher
#74. He gave me a severe look over his spectacles and said, as if he thought the words were deadly venom and might kill me, You are an untidy person.
Jim Butcher
#75. Ebenezar blinked . Then he turned his face to me his expression clearly asking whether or not I was out of my damned mind .
"Wile E. Coyote" I said to him soberly . "Suuuuuuper Genius
Jim Butcher
#76. 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.
Jim Butcher
#77. Revenge is like sex, Mister Dresden. It's best when it comes on slow, quiet, until it all seems inexorable.
Jim Butcher
#78. There's a fine line between audacity and idiocy.
Jim Butcher
#79. 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
#80. Maybe they'd use biological or chemical weapons instead. Maybe they'd crash the world economy. Maybe they'd turn every program on television into one of those reality shows."
"That's mostly done already, Harry."
"Oh. Well. I've got to believe that the world is worth saving anyway.
Jim Butcher
#81. 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
#82. 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
#83. Lean forward a little, my lord," Toot said instantly, and shouted, "Hey, Kernal Purpleweed! Come watch the Za Winter Lord Knight's back!"
I fought not to smile. "No, that's a metaphor," I said.
Toot frowned and scratched his head. "I don't know what it's for.
Jim Butcher
#84. For the sake of one soul. For one loved one. For one life." I called power into my blasting rod, and its tip glowed incandescent white. "The way I see it, there's nothing else worth fighting a war for.
Jim Butcher
#85. You predicted quick victory. Now it's going to get hopelessly complicated. Jesus, don't you know any better than that by now?
Jim Butcher
#86. I was doing the new Summer Lady a favor, running down a rogue
storm sylph. Got to go all over the place in those tornado-chaser
geekmobiles. You should have seen the look on the driver's face when he
realized that the tornado was chasing us.
Jim Butcher
#87. There's nothing that makes you more insane than family. Or more happy. Or more exasperated. Or more ... secure.
Jim Butcher
#88. 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
#89. Butters," rumbled Skaldi Hair Ball. If he really had broken fingers, it didn't look like they were bothering him much. "When are you going to get in this ring and train like a man?"
"About five minutes after I get a functional lightsaber," Butters replied easily, much to Hair Ball's amusement.
Jim Butcher
#90. Bob," I said over my shoulder. "Tell her it's me."
"Can't," Bob said in a dreamy tone. "Boobs.
Jim Butcher
#91. Of course Evil's afoot. If it had switched to the metric system it'd be up to a meter by now.
Jim Butcher
#92. Good Lord, I'm regretting this now," I muttered. "I have never - ever - smelled BO this bad in my life. And I once had s'mores wit a Sasquatch."
"Hang out with him for awhile," Mort gasped. "Eventually it's not so bad."
"Wow. Really?"
"No. Not really.
Jim Butcher
#93. 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.
Jim Butcher
#94. The Blue Beetle was not a clown car," I said severely. "It was a machine of justice.
Jim Butcher
#95. 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.
Jim Butcher
#96. It isn't good to hold on too hard to the past. You can't spend your whole life looking back. Not even when you can't see what lies ahead. All you can do is keep on keeping on, and try to believe that tomorrow will be what it should be - even if it isn't what you expected.
Jim Butcher
#97. Mister Dresden is a diplomatically challenged individual. He should be in a shelter for the tactless.
Jim Butcher
#98. You rush a miracle worker, you get lousy miracles!
Jim Butcher
#99. As soon as I heard there were people in Germany who wanted to restore the old part of Dresden, I wanted to help. Even before the Nobel, I had started this group, the Friends of Dresden. The destruction of Dresden made a big impression on me when I was a child, and I wanted to do this.
Gunter Blobel
#100. Nobody can be bad at everything. There's no such thing as a perfect screwup.
Jim Butcher
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