Jim Butcher Quotes

You can keep a person locked up too long.

I know that victims of torture will offer intentionally misleading information if they think their captors will believe it.

Don’t I have a choice in this?” But when she looks behind her, the answer is clear. There are two guards waiting to make sure that she has no choice at all. And as they lead her away, she thinks of Mr. Durkin. With a bitter laugh, Risa realizes that he may get his wish after all. Someday he may see her hands playing in Carnegie Hall. Unfortunately, the rest of Risa won’t be there.

When I got the chance I asked them a slew of questions. They offered to burn me; it was the only thing they knew.

It was dreadful. They tried to put the little redhead in a cage.

I don't like jail, they got the wrong kind of bars in there.

I was seized on the 8th of June, 1824, in consequence of the war with Bengal and, in company with Dr. Price, three Englishmen, one American, and one Greek, was thrown into the death prison at Ava, where we lay eleven months - nine months in three pairs and two months in five pairs of fetters.

Yes, I was detained for eight days in Waziristan in 1996. It was against my will, and my passport and money were taken from me. I was not mistreated or harmed, but I was also not allowed to leave.

I may have taken someone through the wringer psychologically, but I've never been sinister.

Anyone will say anything under torture.

Dr. Flint had sworn that he would make me suffer, to my last day, for this new crime against him, as he called it; and as long as he had me in his power he kept his word.

Fear works. It is more effective than any drug, tactic, or torture device.

They promptly tore his fingernails out and he started telling things.

If you are fortunate enough to take a prisoner, keep him separate so that he may be examined.

Torture is an extremely effective tool for getting people to talk. It is a terrible tool for getting people to tell the truth.

I was forbidden to talk to my fellow hostages.

I really don't like being in jail.

Guys like the Monarch are not unique, and there are guys like him all over the world torturing dumb scientists.

His specialty was interrogation. Imagine it, gentlemen. Being strapped to a table so that you are entirely at the mercy of a monster such as this. A person who delights in your pain. A person to whom your screams are more delicious than a lover's whisper. A creature who knows how to keep you alive while he skillfully and meticulously deconstructs those things that define you as human?

I think of the security of cages. How violence, cruelty, oppression, become a kind of home, a familiar pattern, a cage, in which we know how to operate and define ourselves.

I think all of us have a sense if we imagine the kind of world we would face if the people who bombed the mess hall in Mosul, or the people who did the bombing in Spain, or the people who attacked the United States in New York, shot down the plane over Pennsylvania and attacked the Pentagon, the people who cut off peoples' heads on television to intimidate, to frighten indeed the word 'terrorized' is just that. Its purpose is to terrorize, to alter behavior, to make people be something other than that which they want to be.

Blood trickled down his chin as he was hauled up onto his knees, the golden rope securing his arms behind him and his ankles together. Arthur looked up and saw the fizzing sparkling crown coming down. I’m Arthur Penhaligon, he thought desperately... The crown was wedged tightly upon his head- and Arthur fell silently screaming into darkness.

None of you understand. I'm not locked up in here with YOU. You're locked up in here with ME.

Some times I think this whole world Is one big prison yeard Some of us are prisoners The rest of us are guards

Somhow those Ten Men -- at the time they were called Recruiters, of course -- discovered that Constance had been at the library. Most likely one of their informants saw her come out, because it was on that very day that the brutes showed up and threatened the librarians. Who told them nothing, incidentally.' 'The same thing happened in Holland,' Kate reflected. 'You'd think these guys would learn their lesson -- librarians know how to keep quiet.' 'It helps to ask politely,' said Mr. Benedict