Lee > Lee's Quotes

“My magic. That was at the heart of me. It was a manifestation of what I believed, what I lived. It came from my desire to see to it that someone stood between the darkness and the people it would devour.”
― Jim Butcher, Fool Moon

“The human mind is not a terribly logical or consistent place.”
― Jim Butcher, Turn Coat

“Harry," Bob drawled, his eye lights flickering smugly, "what you know about women, I could juggle.”
― Jim Butcher, Storm Front

“Put some clothes on, you weird, yellow-eyed, table-dancing, werewolf-training, cryptic, stare-me-right-in-the-eyes-and-don't-even-blink wench.”
― Jim Butcher, Fool Moon

“I still can't believe," Michael said, sotto voce, "that you came to the Vampires' Masquerade Ball dressed as a vampire.”
― Jim Butcher, Grave Peril

“Hell's bells, irony blows.”
― Jim Butcher, Blood Rites

“It's all right to be afraid. You just don't let it stop you from doing your job.”
― Jim Butcher, Fool Moon

“There's more magic in a baby's first giggle than in any firestorm a wizard can conjure up, and don't let anyone tell you any different.”
― Jim Butcher, Fool Moon

“I had to smile at the man. I mean, you have to smile at idiots and children.”
― Jim Butcher, Fool Moon

“Magic comes from the heart, from your feelings, your deepest expressions of desire. That's why black magic is so easy—it comes from lust, from fear and anger, from things that are easy to feed and make grow. The sort I do is harder. It comes from something deeper than that, a truer and purer source—harder to tap, harder to keep, but ultimately more elegant, more powerful. My magic. That was at the heart of me. It was a manifestation of what I believed, what I lived. It came from my desire to see to it that someone stood between the darkness and the people it would devour. It came from my love of a good steak, from the way I would sometimes cry at a good movie or a moving symphony. From my life. From the hope that I could make things better for someone else, if not always for me. Somewhere, in all of that, I touched on something that wasn't tapped out, in spite of how horrible the past days had been, something that hadn't gone cold and numb inside of me. I grasped it, held it in my hand like a firefly, and willed its energy out, into the circle I had created with the spinning amulet on the end of its chain.”
― Jim Butcher, Fool Moon

“I didn't want to believe that killing was deep inside of me. I didn't want to think about the part of me that took a dark joy in gathering all the power it could and using it as I saw fit, everything else be damned. There was power to be had in hatred, too, in anger and in lust, in selfishness and in pride. And I knew that there was some dark corner of me that would enjoy using magic for killing—and then long for more. That was black magic, and it was easy to use. Easy and fun. Like Legos.”
― Jim Butcher, Fool Moon

“Paranoid? Probably. But just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face.”
― Jim Butcher, Storm Front

“When everything goes to hell, the people who stand by you without flinching -- they are your family. ”
― Jim Butcher

“Life is a journey. Time is a river. The door is ajar”
― Jim Butcher, Dead Beat

“An errand is getting a tank of gas or picking up a carton of milk or something. It is not getting chased by flying purple pyromaniac gorillas hurling incendiary poo!”
― Jim Butcher, Blood Rites

“Of course Evil's afoot. If it had switched to the metric system it'd be up to a meter by now. ”
― Jim Butcher

“Sure, we'd faced some things as children that a lot of kids don't. Sure, Justin had qualified for his Junior de Sade Badge in his teaching methods for dealing with pain. We still hadn't learned, though, that growing up is all about getting hurt. And then getting over it. You hurt. You recover. You move on. Odds are pretty good you're just going to get hurt again. But each time, you learn something.

Each time, you come out of it a little stronger, and at some point you realize that there are more flavors of pain than coffee. There's the little empty pain of leaving something behind - gradutaing, taking the next step forward, walking out of something familiar and safe into the unknown. There's the big, whirling pain of life upending all of your plans and expecations. There's the sharp little pains of failure, and the more obscure aches of successes that didn't give you what you thought they would. There are the vicious, stabbing pains of hopes being torn up. The sweet little pains of finding others, giving them your love, and taking joy in their life they grow and learn. There's the steady pain of empathy that you shrug off so you can stand beside a wounded friend and help them bear their burdens.

And if you're very, very lucky, there are a very few blazing hot little pains you feel when you realized that you are standing in a moment of utter perfection, an instant of triumph, or happiness, or mirth which at the same time cannot possibly last - and yet will remain with you for life.

Everyone is down on pain, because they forget something important about it: Pain is for the living. Only the dead don't feel it.

Pain is a part of life. Sometimes it's a big part, and sometimes it isn't, but either way, it's a part of the big puzzle, the deep music, the great game. Pain does two things: It teaches you, tells you that you're alive. Then it passes away and leaves you changed. It leaves you wiser, sometimes. Sometimes it leaves you stronger. Either way, pain leaves its mark, and everything important that will ever happen to you in life is going to involve it in one degree or another.”
― Jim Butcher

“You know how confusing the whole good-evil concept is for me.”
― Jim Butcher, Proven Guilty

“Me and polite have never been on close terms.”
― Jim Butcher

“The building was on fire, and it wasn’t my fault.”
― Jim Butcher, Blood Rites

“In the name of the Pizza Lord. Charge!”
― Jim Butcher, Summer Knight

“I died. I died and someone made a clerical error and I am in Heaven.”
― jim butcher, Summer Knight

“Nay, but prithee, with sprinkles 'pon it instead," I said solemnly, "and frosting of white.”
― Jim Butcher, Small Favor

“My hair had grown out long and shaggy—not in that sexy-young-rock-star kind of way but in that time-to-take-Rover-to-the-groomer kind of way.”
― Jim Butcher, White Night

“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.”
― Jim Butcher, Turn Coat

“Have you ever felt despair? Absolute hopelessness? Have you ever stood in the darkness and known, deep in your heart, in your spirit, that it was never, ever going to get better? That something had been lost, forever, and that it wasn't coming back?”
― Jim Butcher, Storm Front

“Polka will never die.”
― Jim Butcher, Dead Beat

“Likest thou jelly within thy doughnut?”
― Jim Butcher, Small Favor

“Don't mess with a wizard when he's wizarding!”
― Jim Butcher

“There are old swordsmen and bold swordsmen. But few old, bold swordsmen.”
― Jim Butcher, Academ's Fury