Jim Butcher, Dead Beat
14 quotes
"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."
"I'm so pretty, it's hard for me to think of myself as intelligent."
"Heroism doesn't pay very well. I try to be cold-blooded and money-oriented, but I keep screwing it up."
"I know how you feel," I said. "You run into something you totally don't get, and it's scary as hell. But once you learn something about it, it gets easier to handle. Knowledge counters fear. It always has."
"Fear is a part of life. It's a warning mechanism. That's all. It tells you when there's danger around. Its job is to help you survive. Not cripple you into being unable to do it."
"You're reacted to the fear, but you haven't ever faced it and put it into the fight perspective. You have to make up your mind to overcome it."
"Time after time, history demonstrates that when people don't want to believe something, they have enormous skills of ignoring it altogether."
"It was one of those moments that would have had dramatic music if my life were a movie, but instead I got a radio jingle for some kind of submarine sandwich place blaring over the store's ambient stereo. The movie ofmy life must be really low-budget."
"What's with that?” Butters screamed, his voice high and frightened. “Just covering his head with his arms? Didn't he see the lawyer in the movie?"
"I poke at my skull with a finger. It didn't feel soft or anything. I didn't feel insane. But if you'd really lost it, would you have enough left to know? Crazy people never thought they were crazy. "I've always talked to things," I said. "And to myself." "Good point," myself agreed with me. "Unless that means you've been nuts all along." "I don't need wiseass remarks," I told myself severely. "There's work to do. So shut up."
"Harry, life isn't simple. There is such a thing as black and white. Right and wrong. But when you're in the thick of things, sometimes it's hard for us to tell. You didn't do what you did for your own benefit. You did it so that you could protect others. That doesn't make it right - but it doesn't make you a monster, either. You still have free will. You still get to choose what you will do and what you will be and what you will become."
"Children run everywhere for a reason--it's fun. Grown-ups can forget that sometimes."
"I'm brilliant as well as skilled," he said modestly. "It's a great burden, all of that on top of my angelic good looks. But I try to soldier on as best I can."
"Now I feel like James Bond. Suave and intelligent, breaking all the codes while looking fabulous."