Quotes from Ghost Story

“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, quote from Ghost Story

“Oh," the girl said, shaking her head. "Don't be so simple. People adore monsters. They fill their songs and stories with them. They define themselves in relation to them. You know what a monster is, young shade? Power. Power and choice. Monsters make choices. Monsters shape the world. Monsters force us to become stronger, smarter, better. They sift the weak from the strong and provide a forge for the steeling of souls. Even as we curse monsters, we admire them. Seek to become them, in some ways." Her eyes became distant. "There are far, far worse things to be than a monster.”
― Jim Butcher, quote from Ghost Story

“There should be a rule against your own inner monologue throwing around that much sarcasm.”
― Jim Butcher, quote from Ghost Story

“I sometimes give myself excellent advice. Occasionally, I even listen to it.”
― Jim Butcher, quote from Ghost Story

“Courage is about learning how to function despite the fear, to put aside your instincts to run or give in completely to the anger born from fear. Courage is about using your brain and your heart when every cell of your body is screaming at your to fight or flee - and then following through on what you believe is the right thing to do.”
― Jim Butcher, quote from Ghost Story

“My gast was pretty well flabbered.”
― Jim Butcher, quote from Ghost Story

“Gandalf never had this kind of problem.
He had exactly this problem, actually, standing in front of the hidden Dwarf door to Moria. Remember when . . .
I sighed. Sometimes my inner monologue annoys even me. “Edro, edro,” I muttered. “Open.” I rubbed at the bridge of my nose and ventured, “Mellon.”
Nothing happened. The wards stayed. I guessed the Corpsetaker had never read Tolkien. Tasteless bitch.”
― Jim Butcher, quote from Ghost Story

“I may have had good reasons. I may have had the best of intentions.
But intentions aren’t enough, no matter how good they are. Intentions can lead you to a place where you’re able to make a choice.
It’s the choice that counts.”
― Jim Butcher, quote from Ghost Story

“The best thing about my faerie godmother is that the creepy just keeps on coming.”
― Jim Butcher, quote from Ghost Story

“Jump into an open grave? What kind of idiot are you?" Butters replied. "I might as well put on a red shirt and volunteer for the away team. There's snow and ice and slippery mud down there. That's like asking for an ironically broken neck.”
― Jim Butcher, quote from Ghost Story

“Pain isn’t a lot of fun, at least not for most folks, but it is utterly unique to life. Pain — physical, emotional, and otherwise — is the shadow cast by everything you want out of life, the alternative to the result you were hoping for, and the inevitable creator of strength. From the pain of our failures we learn to be better, stronger, greater than what we were before. Pain is there to tell us when we’ve done something badly—it’s a teacher, a guide, one that is always there to both warn us of our limitations and challenge us to overcome them.

For something no one likes, pain does us a whole hell of a lot of good.”
― Jim Butcher, quote from Ghost Story

“I once lost five years listening to a Pink Floyd album.”
― Jim Butcher, quote from Ghost Story

“Epic sex?" I sputtered. "By what standards, precisely, is sex judged to be epic?"

"And tons and tons of mortal simps like you used as pawns." Bob sighed happily, ignoring my question. "There are no words. It was like the Lord of the Rings and All My Children made a baby with the Macho Man Randy Savage and a Whac-A-Mole machine.”
― Jim Butcher, quote from Ghost Story

“I've been a young man. Boobs are near the center of the universe, until you turn twenty-five or so. Which is also when young men's auto insurance rates go down.

This is not a coincidence.”
― Jim Butcher, quote from Ghost Story

“It would require a singularly stupid man to go hang around in narrow tunnels and cramped spaces alongside a threat like that.

"And I, Harry Dresden, am that man," I stated.”
― Jim Butcher, quote from Ghost Story

“But I am dead certain--ba-dump-bump-ching--that I'm the first guy to lead an army of spirits in an assault from the spirit-world side...and had them start off screaming, "BOO!”
― Jim Butcher, quote from Ghost Story

“There is no spoon. I am completely spoonless over here.”
― Jim Butcher, quote from Ghost Story

“I always considered myself a loner.

I mean, not like a poor-me, Byron-esque, I-should-have-brought-a-swimming-buddy loner. I mean the sort of person who doesn’t feel too upset about the prospect of a weekend spent seeing no one, and reading good books on the couch. It wasn’t like I was a people hater or anything. I enjoyed activities and the company of friends. But they were a side dish. I always thought I would be happy without them.”
― Jim Butcher, quote from Ghost Story

“It was never too late to learn something. The past is unalterable in any event. The future is the only thing we can change. Learning the lessons of the past is the only way to shape the present and the future.”
― Jim Butcher, quote from Ghost Story

“Bob, would you be willing to take on Evil Bob?"

Bob's eyes darted nervously. "I'd . . . prefer not to. I'd really, really prefer not to. You have no idea. That me was crazy. And buff. He worked out.”
― Jim Butcher, quote from Ghost Story

“Being here? With you? I've met my subconscious, and he's not that sick.”
― Jim Butcher, quote from Ghost Story

“Hey," He croaked. "You. Arrogant bitch ghost."
"I'm not really into this whole hero thing," Mort said. "Don't have the temperament for it. Don't know a lot about the villain side of the equation, either." He planted his feet,facing the Corpsetaker squarely, his hands clenched into fist at his side.
"But it seems to me, you half-wit, that you probably shouldn't have left a freaking ectomancer a pit full of wraiths to play with.”
― Jim Butcher, quote from Ghost Story

“Souls," I said. "I mean, you always wonder if they're real. Even if you believe in them, you still have to wonder: Is my existence just this body? Is there really something more? Do I really have a soul?"

Uriel's smile blossomed again. "You've got it backward, Harry," he said. "You are a soul. You have a body.”
― Jim Butcher, quote from Ghost Story

“...It's just one hour. Just one little hour. What could happen in one hour?”
― Jim Butcher, quote from Ghost Story

“Everything I told him was technically true, more or less, and I got the job done," Jack said stubbornly. "Look, sir, if I were perfect, I wouldn't be working here in the first place. Now, would I?"
And then he hung up. On speakerphone. On a freaking archangel.
I couldn't help it. I let out a rolling belly laugh. "I just got suckered into doing this by...Stars and stones, you didn't even know that he...Big bad angel boy, and you get the wool pulled over your eyes by..." I stopped trying to talk and just laughed.
Uriel eyed the phone, then me, and then tucked the little device away again, clearly nonplussed. "It doesn't matter how well I believe I know your kind, Harry. They always manage to find some way to try my patience.”
― Jim Butcher, quote from Ghost Story

“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, quote from Ghost Story

“You're dead, son. Cheer is contraindicated.”
― Jim Butcher, quote from Ghost Story

“Karrin smiled faintly and shook her head. "He always said you knew ghosts. You're sure it was really him?"
Mort eyed her. "Me and everyone else, yeah."
Karrin scowled and stared into the middle distance.
Mort frowned and then his expression softened. "You didn't want it to be his ghost. Did you?"
Murphy shook her head slowly, but said nothing.
"You needed everyone to be wrong about it. Because if it really was his ghost," Mort said, "it means that he really is dead."
Murphy's face...just crumpled. Her eyes overflowed and she bowed her head. Her body shook in silence.”
― Jim Butcher, quote from Ghost Story

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“Our study of psychoneurotic disturbances points to a more comprehensive explanation, which includes that of Westermarck. When a wife loses her husband, or a daughter her mother, it not infrequently happens that the survivor is afflicted with tormenting scruples, called ‘obsessive reproaches’ which raises the question whether she herself has not been guilty through carelessness or neglect, of the death of the beloved person. No recalling of the care with which she nursed the invalid, or direct refutation of the asserted guilt can put an end to the torture, which is the pathological expression of mourning and which in time slowly subsides. Psychoanalytic investigation of such cases has made us acquainted with the secret mainsprings of this affliction. We have ascertained that these obsessive reproaches are in a certain sense justified and therefore are immune to refutation or objections. Not that the mourner has really been guilty of the death or that she has really been careless, as the obsessive reproach asserts; but still there was something in her, a wish of which she herself was unaware, which was not displeased with the fact that death came, and which would have brought it about sooner had it been strong enough. The reproach now reacts against this unconscious wish after the death of the beloved person. Such hostility, hidden in the unconscious behind tender love, exists in almost all cases of intensive emotional allegiance to a particular person, indeed it represents the classic case, the prototype of the ambivalence of human emotions. There is always more or less of this ambivalence in everybody’s disposition; normally it is not strong enough to give rise to the obsessive reproaches we have described. But where there is abundant predisposition for it, it manifests itself in the relation to those we love most, precisely where you would least expect it. The disposition to compulsion neurosis which we have so often taken for comparison with taboo problems, is distinguished by a particularly high degree of this original ambivalence of emotions.”
― Sigmund Freud, quote from Totem and Taboo

“She plucked a rose and held it to her face. She hated the way roses smelled, their sweetness too fragile. She wanted a garden of evergreens. A garden of stones. A garden of swords.”
― Kiersten White, quote from And I Darken

“You can’t be serious.” Thomas could only nod. Minho’s shoulders slumped, and his eyes fell to the floor. “How did the world get so shucked?” The words barely came out, low and full of pain. “I’m sorry,” Newt said, and there were tears streaming down his face. “I’m … I’m going to shoot if you don’t go. Now.”
― James Dashner, quote from The Maze Runner Series

“You see how self-love keeps us from knowing our own defects of mind and body. Our reason tries in vain to show them to us; we refuse to see them till we find them in the way of our interests.”
― Andrew Lang, quote from The Blue Fairy Book

“She was trying to say something else; she was trying to say that the inability to articulate what one feels in any satisfactory way is one of our enduring tragedies. It wouldn't have been much, and it wouldn't have been useful, but it would have been something that reflected the gravity and the sadness inside her. Instead, she had snapped at him for being a loser. It was as if she were trying to find a handhold on the boulder of her feelings, and had merely ended up with grit under her nails.”
― Nick Hornby, quote from Juliet, Naked

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