JIM BUTCHER

When a young writer comes up to me with an ambitious idea for a 20-book series, I usually tell him to maybe try something smaller to start off with.

Everybody should get to make a living with their passion.

I've gotten into two fights since I've begun studying the martial arts, and each time, I was worried I'd kill the guy. One of my teachers always told me I had good power but bad control.

My main source for faith-based stuff is mostly the Bible, and a childhood with a much, much higher-than-median exposure to theological thought.

When I started, I was pretty sure I was going to be writing some goofy little wizard novels that might make me some part-time money and would hopefully lead to something I could do better.

I'm one of those people who think that stories should have a beginning, a middle and an end, and then they're over, and then you tell the next story.

I wouldn't burden any decent system of faith by participating in it... I'm not agnostic. Just nonpartisan. Theological Switzerland, that's me.

My laboratory,' I said, experimentally, drawing out each syllable. 'Why is it that saying it like that always makes me want to follow it with 'mwoo-hah-hah-hahhhhh'? ' 'You were overexposed to Hammer Films as a child?' - Harry Dresden & Bob the Skull, Changes, Jim Butcher

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

I like to think of it less as embezzling and more as an involuntary goodwill contribution.

Do you have a little white dress? I've had this deep-seated nurse fantasy about you, Murphy.

Survival was not enough. One had to live.

Thwart," I said. "To prevent someone from accomplishing something by means of visiting gratuitous violence upon his smarmy person." "I'm pretty sure that isn't the definition." Sarissa said. "It is today.

Science, the largest religion of the twentieth century, had become tarnished by images of exploding space shuttles, crack babies, and a generation of complacent Americans who allowed the television to raise their children. People were looking for something - I think they just didn't know what. And even though they were once again starting to open their eyes to the world of magic and the arcane that had been with them all the while, they still thought I must be some kind of joke.

I don't know about your true form, but the weight of your ego sure is pushing the crust of the earth toward the breaking point.

He's Gandalf on crack and an IV of Red Bull, with a big leather coat and a .44 revolver in his pocket.

I grunted. It's something I picked up over a fifteen-year career in law enforcement. Men have managed to create a complex and utterly impenetrable secret language consisting of monosyllabic sounds and partial words—and they are apparently too thick to realize it exists. Maybe they really are from Mars. I'd been able to learn a few Martian phrases over time, and one of the useful ones was the grunt that meant "I acknowledge that I've heard what you said; please continue.

Every soul is special. They’re all beautiful. They’re all far more significant than anyone on this rock realizes. I think when people are at their best, they’re acting in accordance with their soul. The ones who have gone bad don’t have bad souls. They’ve just given up on keeping in touch with them.

There are old swordsmen and bold swordsmen. But few old, bold swordsmen.

Knowledge is the ultimate weapon. It always has been.

What is the point of having free will if one cannot occasionally spit in the eye of destiny?

...you look like you fell out of a crazy tree and hit every branch on the way down.

It isn't good to hold on too hard to the past. You can't spend your whole life looking back. Not even when you can't see what lies ahead. All you can do is keep on keeping on, and try to believe that tomorrow will be what it should be—even if it isn't what you expected.

Screw up my life?" He stared at me for a second and then said, deadpan, "I'm a five-foot-three, thirty-seven-year-old, single, Jewish medical examiner who needs to pick up his lederhosen from the dry cleaners so that he can play in a one-man polka band at Oktoberfest tomorrow." He pushed up his glasses with his forefinger, folded his arms, and said, "Do your worst.

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.