Jim Butcher Quotes

We are in the middle of what looks increasingly like the zombie apocalypse. Moaning people don't need help. Moaning people are intending to eat us.

Once released from life, having lost it in such violence, I couldn’t calculate my steps. I didn’t have time for contemplation. In violence it is the getting out that you concentrate on. When you begin to go over the edge, life receding from you as a boat recedes inevitably from the shore, you hold on to death tightly, like a rope that will transport you, and you swing out on it, hoping to land away from where you are.

I Play Dodgeball with Cannibals (Chapter 2)

Life is a dream in the night, a fear among fears, A naked runner lost in a storm of spears.

What’s the point of truth or beauty or knowledge when anthrax bombs are popping all around you?

By any sane definition of success, if you wake up in a pool of blood and nobody has shot you, you are not successful.

Come on," Alec said, already stomping down the ramp. "Let's find us a squirrel." He swept the weapon back and forth as he walked, looking for any interlopers. "Or better yet, one of the crazies who might've strayed over here. Too bad these things have to be charged or we could get rid of this virus problem in a jiffy. Sweep these old neighborhoods nice and clean." Mark joined him on the ground below the Berg, wary that someone might be watching from the ruined homes surrounding them or from the burnt woods beyond those. "Your value of human life brings tears to my eyes," he muttered.

He felt the hot impact of bullets. He heard the sound of chopping meat. He thought 'is that me?' . . . and then he opened his eyes.

It's still a load. If there was balance, the soldier boys would all be dead, and we'd be sitting pretty in the middle of the Drowned Cities, shipping marble and steel and copper and getting paid Red Chinese for every kilo. We'd be rich and they'd be dead, if there was such a thing as the Scavenge God, or his scales. And that goes double for the Deepwater priests. They're all full of it. Nothing balances out.

Beware the beast Man, for he is the Devil's pawn. Alone among God's primates, he kills for sport or lust or greed. Yea, he will murder his brother to possess his brother's land. Let him not breed in great numbers, for he will make a desert of his home and yours. Shun him; drive him back into his jungle lair, for he is the harbinger of death.

Whatsoever therefore is consequent to a time of war, where every man is enemy to every man, the same consequent to the time wherein men live without other security than what their own strength and their own invention shall furnish them withal. In such condition there is no place for industry... no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.

Everything said, you couldn't hope for a nicer day to have a half dozen ex-soldiers with hunting bows relieve you of everything you owned.

They want us dead,' said Bond calmly. 'So we have to stay alive.

Had the cub thought in man-fashion, he might have epitomized life as a voracious appetite, and the world as a place wherein ranged a multitude of appetites, pursuing and being pursued, hunting and being hunted, eating and being eaten, all in blindness and confusion, with violence and disorder, a chaos of gluttony and slaughter, ruled over by chance, merciless, planless, endless.

Why would I go looking for someone I know wants to kill me?

It is better to be frightened now than killed hereafter

pools of blood are not recreational even lifeguards drown when the undertow breaks bread with the underbelly demons disguised as sharks have not put enough thought into their costumes a wiseman stays ashore when pointed fins read like italian subtitles the end is near (...) the beginning

Lately it has become more and more difficult to attend dinner parties without the evening ending in gunfire or tapioca.

It may well be that we shall by a process of sublime irony have reached a state in this story where safety will be the sturdy child of terror, and survival the twin brother of annihilation.

The bullet that will kill me is not yet cast.

The world wavered and quivered and threatened to burst into flames.

I only need to know one thing. Am I going to need the flamethrower?

So long as you minded your manners and kept your weapons concealed, they let you enter and leave in peace. Those who broke the one house rule of “No Spill Blood” quickly found themselves leaving in pieces.’ (Gallagher)

Never," he spat out, "kick a man who is pointing a gun at you.

He'd been wrong, there was a light at the end of the tunnel, and it was a flamethrower.