“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, quote from Cold Days
“Everything was perfectly healthy and normal here in Denial Land.”
― Jim Butcher, quote from Cold Days
“No one just starts giggling and wearing black and signs up to become a villainous monster. How the hell do you think it happens? 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 realized that they're so far over the line that they can't remember where it was.”
― Jim Butcher, quote from Cold Days
“I read an article once that said that when women have a conversation, they're communicating on five levels. They follow the conversation that they're actually having, the conversation that is specifically being avoided, the tone being applied to the overt conversation, the buried conversation that is being covered only in subtext, and finally the other person's body language.
That is, on many levels, astounding to me. I mean, that's like having a freaking superpower. When I, and most other people with a Y chromosome, have a conversation, we're having a conversation. Singular. We're paying attention to what is being said, considering that, and replying to it. All these other conversations that have apparently been booing on for the last several thousand years? I didn't even know that they existed until I read that stupid article, and I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one.
...
So, ladies, if you ever have some conversation with your boyfriend or husband or brother or male friend, and you are telling him something perfectly obvious, and he comes away from it utterly clueless? I know it's tempting to thing to yourself, 'The man can't possibly be that stupid!'
But yes. Yes, he can.
Our innate strengths just aren't the same. We are the mighty hunters, who are good at focusing on one thing at a time. For crying out loud, we have to turn down the radio in the car if we suspect we're lost and need to figure out how to get where we're going. That's how impaired we are. I'm telling you, we have only the one conversation. Maybe some kind of relationship veteran like Michael Carpenter can do two, but that's pushing the envelope. Five simultaneous conversations? Five?
Shah. That just isn't going to happen. At least, not for me.”
― Jim Butcher, quote from Cold Days
“There's always, always a choice. My options might really, truly suck, but that doesn't mean there isn't a choice.”
― Jim Butcher, quote from Cold Days
“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, quote from Cold Days
“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, quote from Cold Days
“Wait. You work for me?"
"I prefer to think of it as managing your incompetence.”
― Jim Butcher, quote from Cold Days
“Sometimes it isn't easy to be sane, smart, and responsible. Sometimes it sucks. Sucks wang. Camel wang. But that doesn't turn wrong into right or stupid into smart.”
― Jim Butcher, quote from Cold Days
“The impossible we do immediately. The unimaginable takes a little while.”
― Jim Butcher, quote from Cold Days
“See, that’s the tragedy of the human condition. No one wants to be corrupted by power when they set out to get it. They have good, even noble reasons for doing whatever it is they do. They don’t want to misuse it, they don’t want to abuse it, and they don’t want to become vicious monsters. Good people, decent people, set out to take the high road, to pick up power without letting it change them or push them away from their ideals.
But it keeps happening anyway.
History is full of it. As a rule, people aren’t good at handling power. And the second you start to think you’re better at controlling your power than anyone else, you’ve already taken the first step.”
― Jim Butcher, quote from Cold Days
“Hush, Harry. Or you'll go to the special hell."
I blinked at that, confused. I'm not supposed to be the guy who doesn't get the reference joke, dammit.”
― Jim Butcher, quote from Cold Days
“Honest. It's almost always best to go with honest. It means you never have to worry about getting your story straight.”
― Jim Butcher, quote from Cold Days
“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, quote from Cold Days
“Thomas opened the throttle all the way and passed me, I kid you not, a shiny brass telescope.
“Seriously?” I asked him.
“Ever since those pirate movies came out, they’re everywhere,” he said. “I’ve got a sextant, too.”
“Any tent you have is a sex tent,” I muttered darkly, extending the telescope.
Thomas smirked.”
― Jim Butcher, quote from Cold Days
“I kept a straight face while my inner Neanderthal spluttered and then went on a mental rampage through a hypothetical produce section, knocking over shelves and spattering fruit everywhere in sheer frustration, screaming, 'JUST TELL ME WHOSE SKULL TO CRACK WITH MY CLUB, DAMMIT!”
― Jim Butcher, quote from Cold Days
“You think this is going to work? This peaceful summit thing?”
“Sure,” I said. After a second, I added, “Probably.”
“Probably?”
“Maybe,” I said.
“We’re down to maybe now?”
I shrugged. “We’ll see.”
― Jim Butcher, quote from Cold Days
“Because even if they are doing something immoral, I'd be an idiot to start criticizing them for it if I wasn't perfect myself. Smoking is self-destructive. Drinking is self-destructive. Losing your temper and yelling at people is wrong. Lying is wrong. Cheating is wrong. Stealing is wrong. But people do that stuff all the time. Soon as I figure out how to be a perfect human being, then I'm qualified to go lecture other people about how they live their lives.”
― Jim Butcher, quote from Cold Days
“Her flawless pale skin was also spangled with gemstones. I don't know how they'd been attached, but they clung to her and sent little flashes of color glittering around the cavern when she moved. They were concentrated most densely around her ... well ... She'd been, ah, vajazzled.”
― Jim Butcher, quote from Cold Days
“About thirty feet from the door, Molly abruptly stopped in her tracks and said, "Harry."
I paused and looked back at her.
Her eyes were wide. She said, "I sense..."
I narrowed my eyes. "Say it. You know you want to say it."
"It is not a disturbance in the Force, she said, her voice half-exasperated.”
― Jim Butcher, quote from Cold Days
“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, quote from Cold Days
“I slammed the water off hard enough to make it clack, got out of the shower, dried, and started getting dressed in a fresh set of secondhand clothes.
“Why do you wear those?” asked Lacuna.
I jumped, stumbled, and shouted half of a word to a spell, but since I was only halfway done putting on my underwear, I mostly just fell on my naked ass.
“Gah!” I said. “Don’t do that!”
My miniature captive came to the edge of the dresser and peered down at me.
“Don’t ask questions?”
“Don’t come in here all quiet and spooky and scare me like that!”
“You’re six times my height, and fifty times my weight,” Lacuna said gravely. “And I’ve agreed to be your captive. You don’t have any reason to be afraid.”
“Not afraid,” I snapped back. “Startled. It isn’t wise to startle a wizard!”
“Why not?”
“Because of what could happen!”
“Because they might fall down on the floor?”
“No!” I snarled.
Lacuna frowned and said, “You aren’t very good at answering questions.” I started shoving myself into my clothes. “I’m starting to agree with you.”
“So why do you wear those?” I blinked.
“Clothes?”
“Yes. You don’t need them unless it’s cold or raining.”
“You’re wearing clothes.”
“I am wearing armor. For when it is raining arrows. Your T-shirt will not stop arrows.”
“No, it won’t.” I sighed.
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?” That was frustrating in so many ways that I could avoid a stroke only by refusing to engage. “Lacuna,” I said, “humans wear clothes. It’s one of the things we do. And as long as you are in my service, I expect you to do it as well.”
“Why?”
“Because if you don’t, I . . . I . . . might pull your arms out of your sockets.” At that, she frowned. “Why?”
“Because I have to maintain discipline, don’t I?”
“True,” she said gravely. “But I have no clothes.”
I counted to ten mentally. “I’ll . . . find something for you. Until then, no desocketing. Just wear the armor. Fair enough?” Lacuna bowed slightly at the waist. “I understand, my lord.”
“Good.” I sighed. 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.”
“You have a visitor, my lord.”
I frowned. “What?”
“That is why I came in here. You have a visitor waiting for you.”
I stood up, exasperated. “Why didn’t you say so?”
Lacuna looked confused. “I did. Just now. You were there.” She frowned thoughtfully. “Perhaps you have brain damage.”
“It would not shock me in the least,” I said.
“Would you like me to cut open your skull and check, my lord?” she asked.
Someone that short should not be that disturbing. “I . . . No. No, but thank you for the offer.”
“It is my duty to serve,” Lacuna intoned.
My life, Hell’s bells.”
― Jim Butcher, quote from Cold Days
“He’s being held prisoner on a ceramic-lined cookie sheet in the oven,” Thomas said. “I figured he couldn’t jigger his way out of a bunch of steel, and it would give him something to think about before we start asking questions.”
“That’s an awful thing to do to one of the Little Folk, man,” I said.
“I’m planning to start making a pie in front of him.”
“Nice.”
“Thank you.”
― Jim Butcher, quote from Cold Days
“The only good thing about having your back to the wall is that it makes it really easy to choose which way you're going to go.”
― Jim Butcher, quote from Cold Days
“Fire isn't always an element of destruction. Classical alchemical doctrine teaches that it also has dominion over another province: change.”
― Jim Butcher, quote from Cold Days
“Oh, I forgot to mention it: My brother is the kind of man whom women stalk. In cooperative packs.”
― Jim Butcher, quote from Cold Days
“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, quote from Cold Days
“Molly blinked, then looked at Thomas and said, "Wait a minute.... We're his flunkies."
"You, may be," Thomas said, sneering. "I'm his thug. I'm way higher than a flunky."
"You are high if you think I'm taking any orders from you," Molly said tartly.”
― Jim Butcher, quote from Cold Days
“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, quote from Cold Days
Jim Butcher
Born place: in Independence, Missouri, The United States
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“It is we who are the parasites, and Earth the host”
― Carl Zimmer, quote from Parasite Rex: Inside the Bizarre World of Nature's Most Dangerous Creatures
“We were not meant for this. We were meant to live and love and play and work and even hate more simply and directly. It is only through outrageous violence that we come to see this absurdity as normal, or to not see it at all. Each new child has his eyes torn out so he will not see, his ears removed so he will not hear, his tongue ripped out so he will not speak, his mind juiced so he will not think, and his nerves scraped so he will not feel. Then he is released into a world broken in two: others, like himself, and those to be used. He will never realize that he still has all of his senses, if only he will use them. If you mention to him that he still has ears, he will not hear you. If he hears, he will not think. Perhaps most dangerously of all, if he thinks he will not feel. And so on, again.”
― Derrick Jensen, quote from The Culture of Make Believe
“when we hope to be a You, being treated like an It, as though we do not matter, carries a particularly harsh sting.”
― Daniel Goleman, quote from Social Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relationships
“his manner had the heavy ease of a politician, poised between bullying and flattery.”
― Ross Macdonald, quote from The Chill
“Some of the more industrious ones were washing the windshields of cars that had been trapped by the red light. I used to see them from inside cars and think they brought it on themselves, and they probably did but now it didn't make a difference. I went over to the fire and warmed my hands with the group. I looked at their faces: idiots, criminals, retards, schizophrenics, paranoids, rejects, fuck-ups, broken-down failures. Alone, once children, never asked to be put on this earth, they ended up as jurors. Their lives were the verdict: the system, the man, something had failed.”
― Arthur Nersesian, quote from The Fuck-Up
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