The Dresden Files Quotes

#1. When I finally got tired of arguing with her and decided to write a novel as if I was some kind of formulaic, genre writing drone, just to prove to her how awful it would be, I wrote the first book of the Dresden Files.

Jim Butcher

#2. 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

#3. The cabin door swung open and Molly belly-crawled onto the deck until she could see me. "Who started shooting at us?"
"Bad guys!" I cringed as another round hit the side of the boat and peppered me with wooden splinters. "Obviously!

Jim Butcher

#4. 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

#5. Wisps of arctic blue and green and purple buzzed and whirled within those sharp spikes, sending out a wild coruscation of coloured light. The aurora was mesmerizing and blinding at the same time, and little disco balls hoped that they could grow up to be half as brilliant one day.

Jim Butcher

#6. What do you need?" Vadderung asked.
"Advice," I said. "If the price is right."
"And what do you think a sufficient price would be?"
"Lucy charges a nickel."
"Ah," Vadderung said. "But Lucy is a psychiatrist. You realize that you've just cast yourself as Charlie Brown."
"Augh," I said.

Jim Butcher

#7. 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

#8. Keep it up, wise guy. I'm always going to be taller than you once you're lying unconscious on the ground.

Jim Butcher

#9. Someone is out there," I said. "Someone who has been manipulating the events. Playing puppet master, stirring the pot, stacking the deck - "
"Mixing metaphors?" Thomas suggested.

Jim Butcher

#10. Even in winter, the cold isn't always bitter, and not every day is cruel.

Jim Butcher

#11. Come on," I said to Karrin. "Head for the other boat."
"Should we?" she asked. "That Erlking guy seems a little..do-it-yourselfy.

Jim Butcher

#12. 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.

Jim Butcher

#13. He had hard, steady eyes, and all the comforting, reassuring charm of a dental drill. - Harry Dresden describing Morgan

Jim Butcher

#14. I took a big dose of Tylenol the original, since I didn't have my Tylenol 3 or its lesser-known, short-lived cousin, Tylenol Two: The Pain Strikes Back.

Jim Butcher

#15. The words first. Damned near everything begins with words.
"I am," I breathed, and suddenly the ice was clear of my mouth.
"I am Harry ... " I panted, and the pain redoubled.
And I laughed. As if some freak who never loved enough to know loss could tell me about pain.

Jim Butcher

#16. [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

#17. The water near me stirred and then a Sharkface rose up out of it as if on an elevator, slow, his mouth tilted up into a small smile. He stood there on the water perhaps five feet away from me. His eyeless face looked smug.
"Warden," he said.
"Asshat," I replied.

Jim Butcher

#18. Working with civilians, like this was that TV show about the wizard with the talking skull and the twatty name.

Caitlin Kittredge

#19. There aren't any magical words, really. Words just hold the magic.

Jim Butcher

#20. I leaned my head back on the couch and closed my eyes. "I'm not sure what to do next. How are you as a sounding board?"
"I can look interested and nod at appropriate moments," he said.
"Good enough," I said.

Jim Butcher

#21. Peabody may not have seen the man turn into a grizzly, but he was bright enough to know that Injun Joe was getting set to adjust another relative ass-to-ears ratio.

Jim Butcher

#22. There were quick footsteps beside me, and then Molly pressed her back to mine. "You take that side!" she said. "I'll take this one!"
DJ Molly C lifted both of her wands and turned the battle chaos to eleven.

Jim Butcher

#23. 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

#24. 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

#25. We had reached the doors to my suite, which still felt awkward to say, even in my own head. My suite. Guys like me don't have suites. We have lairs.

Jim Butcher

#26. 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

#27. 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

#28. 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

#29. Because nothing says flattery like a gun to the head.

Jim Butcher

#30. 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

#31. You can't plan for everything or you never get started in the first place.

Jim Butcher

#32. The Blue Beetle was not a clown car," I said severely. "It was a machine of justice.

Jim Butcher

#33. We start by sinking a barge," I decided. Then I blinked and looked at the Erlking. "Can we sink a barge?"
The shadow-masked Erlking tilted his head slightly to one side, his burning eyes narrowed. "Wizard, please.

Jim Butcher

#34. Of course Evil's afoot. If it had switched to the metric system it'd be up to a meter by now.

Jim Butcher

#35. Mab had the kind of power you had to describe using exponents.

Jim Butcher

#36. The Carpenters had a threshold more solid and extensive than the Great Wall of China. I would not be in the least bit surprised if you could see it from space.

Jim Butcher

#37. 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

#38. 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

#39. If your new boss wanted yo on the island, wouldn't she just have told you to go there?" Thomas asked.
"Seems like," I said. "Taking her orders is pretty much my job now."
Molly snorted softly.
"Maybe I'll grow into it," I said. "You don't know."
Thomas snorted softly.

Jim Butcher

#40. Mac folded his arms on the bar and looked at me intently and said, in a resonant baritone, "You've got to be very careful, Harry."
I looked at him, shocked. He'd ... used grammar.

Jim Butcher

#41. 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

#42. My name is Harry Dresden," I said.
Fitz stumbled. "Holy shit," he said. "Like ... that Harry Dresden? The professional wizard?"
"The one and only."
He recovered his pace and shook his head. "I heard you were dead."
"Well, yeah," I said, "but I'm taking it in stride.

Jim Butcher

#43. EASTER HAS BEEN CANCELED - THEY FOUND THE BODY

Jim Butcher

#44. Butters blinked at looked at Thomas. "My God," he said. "You've been shot."
Thomas hooked a thumb at Butters. "Check out Dr. Marcus Welby, MD, here."
"I'd have gone with Doogie Howser, maybe," I said.
"Split the difference at McCoy?" Thomas asked.
"Perfect.

Jim Butcher

#45. Booya!" I shouted in pure triumph, the adrenaline turning my manly baritone into a rather terrified-sounding shriek. "What have you got for fiery beams of death, huh? You got nothing for fiery beam of death! Might as well go back to Atari, bug-boy, 'cause you don't got game enough for me!

Jim Butcher

#46. Stop," Kincaid said in a calm voice. "Unclench."
"Unclench what?" Murphy demanded.
"Unclench your ass."
"Excuse me?"
"You're going to trip the beam. You need another quarter inch. Relax."
"I am relaxed," Murphy growled.
"Oh," Kincaid said. "Damn, great ass then.

Jim Butcher

#47. 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

#48. 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

#49. If you turn into a hideous monster and I am sent to slay you, I will remember this and make it as painless as I can, out of respect for you.

Jim Butcher