Turn Coat

The human mind is not a terribly logical or consistent place.

You're in America now," I said. "Our idea of diplomacy is showing up with a gun in one hand and a sandwich in the other and asking which you'd prefer.

There are bad things in the world. There's no getting away from that. But that doesn't mean nothing can be done about them. You can't abandon life just because it's scary, and just because sometimes you get hurt.

If you can't stop the bad thoughts from coming to visit, at least you can make fun of them while they're hanging around.

No one is an unjust villain in his own mind. Even - perhaps even especially - those who are the worst of us. Some of the cruelest tyrants in history were motivated by noble ideals, or made choices that they would call 'hard but necessary steps' for the good of their nation. We're all the hero of our own story.

There's a fine line between audacity and idiocy.

The human mind isn't a terribly logical or consistent place. Most people, given the choice to face a hideous or terrifying truth or to conveniently avoid it, choose the convenience and peace of normality. That doesn't make them strong or weak people, or good or bad people. It just makes them people.

Like “love,” “hope” is one of those ridiculously disproportional words that by all rights should be a lot longer.

I love being a wizard. Every day is like Disneyland.

There is the world that should be and the world that is. We live in one and must create the other.

You," Madeline said, her voice hollow and wheezing, "are like a bad case of herpes, wizard. You're inconvenient, embarassing, no real threat, and you simply will not go away.

Night wasn't so much falling as sharpening its claws.

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....

Maybe the Merlin was right. Maybe its better to look stupid but strong, than it is to look smart but weak, I don't know. I'm not sure I want to believe that the world stage bears that strong a resemblance to high school.

It isn't a club," I said calmly. "It's a walking stick." "Six feet long." "It's traditional Ozark folk art." "With dents and nicks all over it." I thought about it for a second. "I'm insecure?" "Get a blanket." He held out his hand. I signed and passed my staff over to him. "Do I get a receipt?" He took a notepad from his pocket and wrote on it. Then he passed it over to me. It read: Received, one six foot tall traditional Ozark walking club from Mr. Smart-Ass.

As far as the Council is concerned, the U.S. Wardens are a bunch of mushrooms." "Eh?" "Kept in the dark and fed on bullshit.

I can't believe I'm about to say this," I said. "So think real careful about where this is coming from. Have you people ever considered *talking* when you've got a problem?

I like to stay cozy with my paranoia, not pass her around to my friends and family.

He gave me an inscrutable look that said maybe he would and maybe he wouldn't. Mister was a cat, and cats generally considered it the obligation of the universe to provide shelter, sustenance, and amusement as required. I think Mister considered it beneath his dignity to plan for the future.

I guess maybe you don’t get to be the Merlin of the White Council by saving up frequent-flier miles

She looked up at me with a polite smile, her dark hair long and appealing...I liked the smile. Maybe I didn't look like a beaten-up bum. Maybe on me it just looked ruggedly determined. "I'm sorry, sir," she said, "but the addiction counseling center is on twenty-six." Sigh.

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

Molly, you are a good person. Don't let anyone take that away from you. Not even yourself.

This is Waldo Butters, and his geek penis is longer and harder than any of ours put together.

Murphy nodded, frowning at the road ahead of her. "The reason treachery is so reveiled," she said in a careful tone of voice, "is because it usually comes from someone you didn't think could possibly do such a thing.

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?

I checked my gear, my pockets, my shoelaces, and realized that I had crossed the line between making sure I was ready and trying to postpone the inevitable.

Everyone dies, honey," I said, very quietly. "Everyone. There's no 'if.' There's only 'when.'" I let that sink in for a moment. "When you die, do you want to feel ashamed of what you've done with your life? Feel ashamed of what your life meant?