Stuart ostling > Stuart's Quotes

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

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

“Are you always a smartass?'

Nope. Sometimes I'm asleep.”
― Jim Butcher, Blood Rites

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

“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

“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

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

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

“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

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

“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

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

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

“Most of the bad guys in the real world don't know that they are bad guys. You don't get a flashing warning sign that you're about to damn yourself. It sneaks up on you when you aren't looking.”
― Jim Butcher

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

“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

“We have now left Reason and Sanity Junction. Next stop, Looneyville.”
― Jim Butcher, Grave Peril

“Laugh whenever you can. Keeps you from killing yourself when things are bad. That and vodka.”
― Jim Butcher, Changes

“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. ”
― Jim Butcher, Turn Coat

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

“We are not going to die."

Butters stared up at me, pale, his eyes terrified. "We're not?"

"No. And do you know why?" He shook his head. "Because Thomas is too pretty to die. And because I'm too stubborn to die." I hauled on the shirt even harder. "And most of all because tomorrow is Oktoberfest, Butters, and polka will never die.”
― Jim Butcher, Dead Beat

“You backbiting, poisonous, treacherous, deceitful, wicked, clever girl. If this works I'll buy you a pony.”
― Jim Butcher, Summer Knight

“There is a primal reassurance in being touched, in knowing that someone else, someone close to you, wants to be touching you. There is a bone-deep security that goes with the brush of a human hand, a silent, reflex-level affirmation that someone is near, that someone cares.”
― Jim Butcher, White Night

“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

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

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

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

“Anger is just anger. It isn't good. It isn't bad. It just is. What you do with it is what matters. It's like anything else. You can use it to build or to destroy. You just have to make the choice."

Constructive anger," the demon said, her voice dripping sarcasm.

Also known as passion," I said quietly. "Passion has overthrown tyrants and freed prisoners and slaves. Passion has brought justice where there was savagery. Passion has created freedom where there was nothing but fear. Passion has helped souls rise from the ashes of their horrible lives and build something better, stronger, more beautiful.”
― Jim Butcher, White Night

“Sleep is God. Go worship.”
― Jim Butcher, Death Masks

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