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Jim Butcher Quotes
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Jim Butcher is an American author best known for his contemporary fantasy book series The Dresden Files. He is also the author of the Codex Alera series, and the Cinder Spires series.

✵ 26. October 1971
Jim Butcher photo
Jim Butcher: 383 quotes51 likes

Jim Butcher Quotes

“Keep it up, wise guy. I'm always going to be taller than you once you're lying unconscious on the ground.”

Jim Butcher book Small Favor

Source: Small Favor

“I’d gone with my usual option. I was running through long tunnels filled with demons and monsters and nightmares, because it was easier than going to the gym.”

Jim Butcher book Skin Game

Source: Skin Game

“There is no truer gauge of a man's character than the way in which he employs his strength, his power.”

Jim Butcher book Storm Front

Source: Storm Front

“All power is the same. Magic. Physical strength. Economic strength. Political strength. It all serves a single purpose-it gives its possessor a broader spectrum of choices. It creates alternative courses of action.”

Jim Butcher Proven Guilty

Source: Proven Guilty

“Many women have earned titles, Your Grace. It doesn't seem to have been a factor in whether or not they actually received them.”

Jim Butcher book Academ's Fury

Source: Academ's Fury

“For me chivalry isn't dead; it's an involuntary reflex.”

Jim Butcher book Summer Knight

Source: Summer Knight

“Do you want your blood to stay where it is sochar-lar?"
Tavi lifted both eyebrows at the unfamiliar word, and glanced at Varg.
"Monkey," Varg supplied, in Aleran. "And male-child."
"He called me monkey boy?" Tavi asked.”

Jim Butcher Captain's Fury

Source: Captain's Fury

“Harry Dresden: As a whole, people suck, but a person can be extraordinary.”

Jim Butcher The Dresden Files

Source: The Dresden Files, Changes (2010), Chapter 18

“Bigots see something they expect and then they stop thinking about what is in front of them. It's probably how they got to be bigots in the first place.”

Jim Butcher book White Night

Source: White Night

“Maybe,” he said in a slow, rural drawl, “you could explain to me why I found you in the middle of an orgy.”
“Well,” I said, “if you’re going to be in an orgy, the middle is the best spot, isn’t it.”

Jim Butcher

Source: Hex Appeal

“The Blue Beetle was not a clown car," I said severely. "It was a machine of justice.”

Jim Butcher book Skin Game

Source: Skin Game

“I could buy that she would murder me in a fit of rage, poison me out of flaming jealousy, or bomb my car out of sheer, stubborn pique. But she would never do it and feel nothing.”

Jim Butcher book Summer Knight

Source: Summer Knight

“You know the law, Dresden."
"He who kills the cheer springs for beer," chanted the rest of the table.”

Jim Butcher book Backup

Source: Backup

“I can't be under arrest now… I don't have time.”

Jim Butcher book Fool Moon

Source: Fool Moon

“Living was a dangerous past-time, and often quite painful—but there was also such joy in living, such beauty, things that one would otherwise never see, never experience, never know. The risk of pain and loss was a part of living.”

Jim Butcher Captain's Fury

Source: Captain's Fury

“My brief flash of relief and confidence melted away. Good thing it did, too. I'm sure the world would come to an end if I were allowed to feel a sense of relief and well-being for any length of time.”

Jim Butcher Dead Beat

Source: Dead Beat

“Unicorns," I said. "Very dangerous. You go first.”

Jim Butcher book Summer Knight

Source: Summer Knight

“Just because you start out as one thing, it doesn't mean you can't grow into something else.”

Jim Butcher book White Night

Source: White Night

“I will make Maggie safe. If the world burns because of that then so be it. Me and the kid will roast some marshmallows.”

Jim Butcher book Changes

Source: Changes

“I had a vague memory of being that ridiculous at one time. Let he who hath never worn parachute pants cast the first stone.”

Jim Butcher book Death Masks

Source: Death Masks

“It rained toads the day the White Council came to town.”

Jim Butcher book Summer Knight

Source: Summer Knight

“Some men fall from grace. Some are pushed.”

Jim Butcher book Skin Game

Source: Skin Game

“Sticks and stones and small caliber bullets may break my bones… Words will never, et cetera.”

Jim Butcher book White Night

Source: White Night

“Kid. You just made the last mistake of your life.'
'God,' I said. 'I.”

Jim Butcher book Small Favor

Source: Small Favor

“I slammed the doors open a little harder than I needed to, stalked out to the Blue Beetle, and drove away with all the raging power the ancient four-cylinder engine should muster. Behold the angry wizard puttputt-putting away.”

Jim Butcher book Summer Knight

Source: Summer Knight

“It would require a singularly stupid man to go hang around in narrow tunnels and cramped spaces alongside a threat like that.

"And I, Harry Dresden, am that man," I stated.”

Jim Butcher book Ghost Story

Source: Ghost Story

“There is no spoon. I am completely spoonless over here.”

Jim Butcher book Ghost Story

Source: Ghost Story

“I would hit you on the head with a rock and drag you away from this. But it would only shatter the rock.”

Jim Butcher Captain's Fury

Source: Captain's Fury

“I’d had a key to the marina’s locks at one time, but I’d lost track of it when I got shot, drowned, died, got revived into a coma, haunted my friends for a while, and then woke up in Mab’s bed.

(My life. Hell’s bells.)”

Jim Butcher book Cold Days

Source: Cold Days

“I do not need the written code of a spiritual belief to act like a decent human being.”

Jim Butcher book Changes

Source: Changes

“But I am dead certain--ba-dump-bump-ching--that I'm the first guy to lead an army of spirits in an assault from the spirit-world side… and had them start off screaming, "BOO!”

Jim Butcher book Ghost Story

Source: Ghost Story

“Harry Dresden: Boobs are near the center of the universe, until you turn twenty-five or so. Which is also when young men’s auto insurance rates go down. This is not a coincidence.”

Jim Butcher book Ghost Story

Source: The Dresden Files, Ghost Story (2011), Chapter 9

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

Jim Butcher book Backup

The Dresden Files short stories, Backup
Context: Thomas Raith: Harry's a wizard. A genuine, honest-to-good-ness wizard. He's Gandalf on crack and an IV of Red Bull, with a big leather coat and a.44 revolver in his pocket. He'll spit in the eye of gods and demons alike if he thinks it needs to be done, and to hell with the consequences-and yet somehow my little brother manages to remain a decent human being.

“I'm sure that you psychotic necro-wannabes with delusions of godhood are all about sharing with your fellow maniacs.”

Jim Butcher Dead Beat

Source: Dead Beat

“I made a sandwich out of things. I'm an American. We can eat anything as long as it's between two pieces of bread.”

Jim Butcher book Small Favor

Source: Small Favor

“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.”

Jim Butcher book Ghost Story

Source: Ghost Story

“Bob, would you be willing to take on Evil Bob?"

Bob's eyes darted nervously. "I'd… prefer not to. I'd really, really prefer not to. You have no idea. That me was crazy. And buff. He worked out.”

Jim Butcher book Ghost Story

Source: Ghost Story

“The only good thing about having your back to the wall is that it makes it really easy to choose which way you're going to go.”

Jim Butcher book Cold Days

Source: Cold Days

“beer is an excellent argument that there is a God, and that furthermore, He wants us to be happy.”

Jim Butcher book Skin Game

Source: Skin Game

“Fire isn't always an element of destruction. Classical alchemical doctrine teaches that it also has dominion over another province: change.”

Jim Butcher book Cold Days

Source: Cold Days

“Kincaid, evidently exhausted himself, drew a gun, took the safety off, placed it on his chest, and went to sleep too.

"It's cute," I whispered to Murphy. "He has a teddy Glock.”

Jim Butcher book Small Favor

Source: Small Favor

“Because nothing says flattery like a gun to the head.”

Jim Butcher book Blood Rites

Source: Blood Rites

“Uh, the Council," I said. "Big shock, they aren't helping."

Murphy looked like she might be asleep, but she snorted. "So we're on our own."

Yeah."

Good. It's more familiar.”

Jim Butcher book Changes

Source: Changes

“If I stay, they'll kill me… If I go, at least everything that wants me dead won't be taking it personally.”

Jim Butcher Captain's Fury

Source: Captain's Fury

“Each creature had something it excelled at, he supposed. Humans could manage knots easily, and cats could do everything else.”

Jim Butcher book The Aeronaut's Windlass

Source: The Aeronaut's Windlass