“Monty Python is like catnip for nerds. Once you get them started quoting it, they are constitutionally incapable of feeling depressed.”
― Kevin Hearne, quote from Hounded
“Wow you need to get some sun.”
“Shut up. I'm Irish.”
― Kevin Hearne, quote from Hounded
“I'd have to ask Oberon to leave him a present on his front doorstep. He'd do it camouflaged too, so that even if Mr. Semerdjian was watching - and he probably would be - it would appear to be undeniable, physical evidence that, sometimes, shit just happens.”
― Kevin Hearne, quote from Hounded
“Ye know what me Sean used to say, God rest his soul? He said, 'A friend will help ye move, Katie, but a really good friend will help ye move a body.”
― Kevin Hearne, quote from Hounded
“Whoa. He had ghouls on speed dial. My lawyer kicks so much ass.”
― Kevin Hearne, quote from Hounded
“It quickly became a tracking operation, though. My chariot could not keep up with his truck. By the time I caught up with him, his truck was parked in one of those asphalt wastelands. What are they called again"?
The Tuatha De Danann have no problem asking Druids for information. That's what we're for, after all. The secret to becoming an Old Druid instead of a dead Druid is to betray nary a hint of condescension when answering even the simplest questions.
"They are called parking lots," I replied.
"Ah, yes, thank you. He came out of a building called 'Crussh', holding one of these potions. Are you familar with the building, Druid?"
"I belive that is a smoothie bar in England."
"Quite right. So after I killed him and stowed his body next to the doe, I sampled his smooth concoction in the parking lot and found it to be quite delicious".
See, sentences like that are why I nurture a healthy fear of the Tuatha De Danann.”
― Kevin Hearne, quote from Hounded
“Hamlet promised himself he’d throw down afterward, but I think perhaps when he said, “From this time forth, my thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!” the limits of blank verse weakened his resolve somehow. If he’d been free to follow the dictates of his conscience rather than the pen of Shakespeare, perhaps he would have abandoned verse altogether, like me, and contented himself with this instead: “Bring it, muthafuckas. Bring it.”
― Kevin Hearne, quote from Hounded
“I had privately changed 'This, too, shall pass' into 'You, too, shall die'.”
― Kevin Hearne, quote from Hounded
“What sealed the deal for me was that the cloak wouldn't come off without a generous donation of my tears. Those used to be almost impossible for me to summon, I admit, until I watched Field of Dreams. When Kevin Costner asks his dad at the end if he'd like to have a catch, I just completely lose my shit.”
― Kevin Hearne, quote from Hounded
“Malina looked incredulous. "Are you anything more than a Druid?"
"Of course I am. I own this shop and I play a mean game of chess, and I've been told that I'm a frakkin' Cylon."
"What's a frakkin' Cylon?"
"I don't know, but it sounds really scary when you say it with a Polish Accent.”
― Kevin Hearne, quote from Hounded
“Flidais clapped her hands in delight.
"Oh, I bet he nearly shat kine!"
That made me laugh - I hadn't heard that expression in a long, long time. I refrained from telling her that the modern expression would be "he had a cow", because I liked the original better.
"Yes, the kine he nearly shat would have fed several clans.”
― Kevin Hearne, quote from Hounded
“I have been around long enough to discount most superstitions for what they are: I was around when many of them began to take root, after all. But one superstition to which I happen to subscribe is that bad juju comes in threes. The saying in my time was, "Storm clouds are thrice cursed," but I can't talk like that and expect people to believe I'm a twenty-one year-old American. I have to say things like, "Shit happens, man.”
― Kevin Hearne, quote from Hounded
“You will respect my authori-tah!' Oberon said, in a passable imitation of Eric Cartman. I reminded him that I needed to concentrate. Sometimes dogs forget; they just get too excited.”
― Kevin Hearne, quote from Hounded
“There are many perks to living for twenty-one centuries, and foremost among them is bearing witness to the rare birth of genius. It invariably goes like this: Someone shrugs off the weight of his cultural traditions, ignores the baleful stares of authority, and does something his countrymen think to be completely batshit insane. Of those, Galileo was my personal favorite. Van Gogh comes in second, but he really was batshit insane.”
― Kevin Hearne, quote from Hounded
“A friend will help ye move, Katie, but a really good friend will help ye move a body.”
― Kevin Hearne, quote from Hounded
“When you're in the middle of a killing field and the fucking Chooser of the Slain tells you to do something, you do it.”
― Kevin Hearne, quote from Hounded
“The point is, Mrs. MacDonagh, that the universe is exactly the size that your soul can encompass. Some people live in extremely small worlds, and some live in a world of infinite possibility.”
― Kevin Hearne, quote from Hounded
“The widow’s eyebrows raised. “Ye’ve got all these nasty pooches to run around with and ye still might die?”
“I’m going to go fight with a god, some demons, and a coven of witches who all want to kill me,” I said, “so it’s a distinct possibility.”
“Are y’goin’ t’kill ’em back?”
“I’d certainly like to.”
“Attaboy,” the widow chuckled. “Off y’go, then. Kill every last one o’ the bastards and call me in the mornin’.”
― Kevin Hearne, quote from Hounded
“This guy is an epic douche. Kick his shiny ass, Atticus, Oberon said.
I compartmentalized his comment and resolved to enjoy it later. I glared at this would be usurper and said in my most authoritative voice, "Aenghus Og, you have broken Druidic law by killing the land around us and opening a gate to hell, unleashing demons on this plane. I judge you guilty and sentence you to death."
Amen, Atticus! Testify!”
― Kevin Hearne, quote from Hounded
“What do you know? She liked to be told she was scary. Kinky.”
― Kevin Hearne, quote from Hounded
“The Morrigan’s ideas of sport and mine varied widely. As a Chooser of the Slain, she tends to enjoy nothing so much as a protracted war. She hangs out with Kali and the Valkyries and they have a death goddesses’ night out on the battlefield.”
― Kevin Hearne, quote from Hounded
“She's kind of like a Mary Poppins just before she turns to the dark side of the Force," Oberon said. He was still behind the counter, but he had a good lok at her as she exited. "Let go of your anger, Malina! There's still good in you! The Emperor hasn't driven it from you fully!”
― Kevin Hearne, quote from Hounded
“How would you take care of it?” I asked.
He shrugged. “I know some ghouls. I make a couple calls, the guys come over for dinner, problem solved.”
“They can put away nine whole giants? There’s that many ghouls in town?”
“Probably not,” Leif admitted. “But whatever they do not eat tonight, they’ll take the rest to go.”
I stared at him in disbelief. “You mean like a doggie bag?”
The vampire nodded with a thin trace of a smile. “They have a refrigerated truck, Atticus. These are practical guys.”
― Kevin Hearne, quote from Hounded
“You are telling me that your lawyer is a bloodsucking vampire?”
― Kevin Hearne, quote from Hounded
“Did you get me that movie about Genghis Khan?
'It's in the Netflix queue, but that's not the surprise. You don't need to worry, it'll be something good. I just don't want you to feel depressed about going home.'
Oh, I won't. But it would be cool to have a stream like this in the backyard. Can you make one?
'Ummm... no.'
I figured. Can't blame a hound for trying.
Oberon was indeed surprised when we got back home to Tempe. Hal had made the arrangements for me and Oberon perked up as soon as we were dropped off by the shuttle from the car rental company.
'Hey, smells like someone's in my territory,' he said.
'Nobody could be here without my permission, you know that.'
'Flidais did it.'
'That isn't Flidais you smell, believe me.'
I opened the front door, and Oberon immediately ran to the kitchen window that gazed upon the backyard. He barked joyously when he saw what was waiting for him there.
'French poodles! All black and curly with poofy little tails!'
'And every one of them in heat.'
'Oh, WOW! Thanks Atticus! I can't wait to sniff their asses!'
He bounded over to the door and pawed at it because the doggie door was closed to prevent the poodles from entering.
'You earned it, buddy. Hold on, get down off the door so I can open it for you, and be careful, don't hurt any of them.'
I opened the door, expecting him to bolt through it and dive into his own personal canine harem, but instead he took one step and stopped, looking up at me with a mournful expression, his ears drooping and a tiny whine escaping his snout.
'Only five?”
― Kevin Hearne, quote from Hounded
“Will you tell me about Genghis Khan’s whores while I’m in the bath?" "Hordes, not whores. He had both, though, now that you mention it." "Sounds like he was a busy guy." You have no idea.”
― Kevin Hearne, quote from Hounded
“Am I not a fearsome enemy?"
"You frighten me primally.”
― Kevin Hearne, quote from Hounded
“It wasn't even a dream, because dreams come from a person's brain and I knew deep down that this one came directly from my madness.”
― Caitlin Kittredge, quote from The Iron Thorn
“The city which lay below was a charnel house built on multi-layered bones centuries older than those which lay beneath the cities of Hamburg or Dresden. Was this knowledge part of the mystery it held for her, a mystery felt most strongly on a bell-chimed Sunday on her solitary exploration of its hidden alleys and squares? Time had fascinated her from childhood, its apparent power to move at different speeds, the dissolution it wrought on minds and bodies, her sense that each moment, all moments past and those to come, were fused into an illusory present which with every breath became the unalterable, indestructible past. In the City of London these moments were caught and solidified in stone and brick, in churches and monuments and in bridges which spanned the grey-brown ever-flowing Thames. She would walk out in spring or summer as early as six o'clock, double-locking the front door behind her, stepping into a silence more profound and mysterious than the absence of noise. Sometimes in this solitary perambulation it seenmed that her own footsteps were muted, as if some part of her were afraid to waken the dead who had walked thse streets and had known the same silence.”
― P.D. James, quote from The Private Patient
“This isn’t something I had planned to talk about so soon,” her grandmother said as they entered the gardens. “I wanted to wait awhile longer to give you a chance to demonstrate that you were ready, that you had listened to what I told you about growing up and making mature decisions. I wanted you to season a little more. But we don’t always get what we want in this life. In fact, we don’t get what we want most of the time. We get compromises and settlements, half measures and tamped-down dreams. We get half a loaf baked, half a glass filled. That’s what we have here.”
Phryne nodded, having no idea what she was talking about. “That might be so, but we don’t have to like it.”
“We shouldn’t have to accept it, either. Mostly, we don’t. We understand the odds are against us, but we still strive for something more. We make our best effort each time out because now and then we get exactly what we want.”
― Terry Brooks, quote from Bearers of the Black Staff
“But I was not my self, confronted with my thoughts. I should also rise up above my thoughts to my own self. My journey goes there, and that is why it leads away from men and events into solitude. Is it solitude, to be with oneself? Solitude is true only when the self is a desert.73 Should I also make a garden out of the desert? Should I people a desolate land? Should I open the airy magic garden of the wilderness? What leads me into the desert, and what am I to do there? Is it a deception that I can no longer trust my thoughts? Only life is true, and only life leads me into the desert, truly not my thinking, that would like to return to thoughts, to men and events, since it feels uncanny in the desert. My soul, what am I to do here? But my soul spoke to me and said, “Wait.” I heard the cruel word. Torment belongs to the desert.”
― C.G. Jung, quote from The Red Book: Liber Novus
“No system today can duplicate a person’s ability to recognize both many words and many speakers. Perhaps the state of the art is a system called DragonDictate, which runs on a personal computer and can recognize 30,000 words.”
― Steven Pinker, quote from The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language
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