Caring about someone isn’t complicated. It isn’t easy. But it isn’t complicated, either. Kinda like lifting the engine block out of a car.

Nobody can be bad at everything. There’s no such thing as a perfect screwup.

I still can’t believe,” Michael said, sotto voce, “that you came to the Vampires’ Masquerade Ball dressed as a vampire.

See? This is why I’m not religious. I couldn’t possibly keep my mouth shut long enough to get along with everyone else.

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

Doesn’t matter how pretty you are. What’s important is how pretty you feel. No one feels pretty when they hear “no” often enough.

I hate what you represent.”… “Power without conviction.” Isana replied, her tone lifeless, matter of fact. “Ambition without conscience. Decent folk suffer at the hands of those like you.

You have a visitor, my lord.” I frowned, “What?” “That is why I came in here. You have a visitor waiting for you.” I stood up, exasperated. “Why didn’t you say so?” Lacuna looked confused....

There’s always, always a choice. My options might really, truly suck, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a choice.

Mister Dresden,” he said. “And Miss Rodriguez, I believe. I didn’t realize you were an art collector.” “I am the foremost collector of velvet Elvii in the city of Chicago,” I said at once. “Elvii?”...

There are a lot of things I can’t control. I don’t know what’s going to happen in the next few days.I don’t want what I am going to face, what kind of choices I am...

I’d made the vampire cry. Great. I felt like a real superhero. Harry Dresden, breaker of monsters’ hearts.

Life would be unbearably dull if we had answers to all our questions.

I am blind and limited. I would be a fool think myself wise. And so, not knowing what the universe means, I can only try to be responsible with the knowledge, the strength, and the...

The human mind isn’t a terribly logical or consistent place. Most people, given the choice to face a hideous or terrifying truth or to conveniently avoid it, choose the convenience and peace of normality. That...

Like I said, magic comes from life, and especially from emotions. They’re a source of the same intangible energy that everyone can feel when an autumn moon rises and fills you with a sudden sense...

The wacky thing about those bad guys is that you can’t count on them to be obvious. They forget to wax their mustaches and goatees, leave their horns at home, send their black hats to...

You don’t have to make fun of it.””Actually I do,” I said. “I make fun of almost everything.

If you turn into a hideous monster and I am sent to slay you, I will remember this and make it as painless as I can, out of respect for you.

Please, help me. Young werewolves in love. I turned to walk into the house, moving carefully.I had never much believed in God. Well, that’s not quite true. I believed that there was a God, or...

Hell’s bells, irony blows.

Everyone is down on pain, because they forget something important about it: Pain is for the living. Only the dead don’t feel it.

I choose my battles, Dresden. Not you.” She looked up at me calmly. “Let me put this in terms that will get through your skull: My friend is going to save a child from monsters....

I put on the boots and kicked some monster ass.

Ease off the martyr throttle.

Honest. It’s almost always best to go with honest. It means you never have to worry about getting your story straight.

Think of every fairy-tale villainess you’ve ever heard of. Think of the wicked witches, the evil queens, the mad enchantresses. Think of the alluring sirens, the hungry ogresses, the savage she-beasts. Think of them and...

Peabody may not have seen the man turn into a grizzly, but he was bright enough to know that Injun Joe was getting set to adjust another relative ass-to-ears ratio.

Regardless of what I think about Islam or Wicca or any other religion, the fact is that it’s a group of people. Every faith has its ceremonies. And since it’s made up of people, every...

I have nightmares about hell, where all I do is add up numbers and try to have conversations with people like you.

But I don’t understand God. I don’t understand how he could see the way people treat one another, and not chalk up the whole human race as a bad idea.

Time after time, history demonstrates that when people don’t want to believe something, they have enormous skills of ignoring it altogether.

…the cab of the truck heated up nicely, its windows fogging. I felt like a Dickens character. I thought about explaining that to Mouse, just to occupy my thoughts, but he was suffering enough without...

hope” is one of those ridiculously disproportional words that by all rights should be a lot longer.

Sleep is God. Go worship.

Death is only frightening from the near side.

People love dogs. You can never go wrong adding a dog to the story.

She frowned at me. “You need some rest. You look like hell. And you’re obviously tired enough to have gotten the giggles.”Wizards don’t giggle,” I said, hardly able to speak. “This is cackling.

Son. Everyone dies alone. That’s what it is. It’s a door. It’s one person wide. When you go through it, you do it alone. But it doesn’t mean you’ve got to be alone before you...

But you’d get arguments from all kinds of people that the Bible has got to be perfect. That God would not permit such errors to be made in the Holy Word.””I thought God gave everyone...

Paranoia is a survival trait when you run in my circles. It gives you something to do in your spare time, coming up with solutions to ridiculous problems that aren’t ever going to happen. Except...

I love you.” Why it worked right then, why the webbing of my godmother’s spell frayed as though the words had been an open flame, I don’t know. I haven’t found any explanation for it....

Bring it, Darth Bathrobe!

That’s Doctor Smart-ass. I didn’t spend eight years in insult college to be called Mister.

Wait. You work for me?””I prefer to think of it as managing your incompetence.

There are a lot of people he’s taught. Trained. Defended. And he’s been an example. No single one of us can ever be what he was. But together, maybe we can.

I’m so pretty, it’s hard for me to think of myself as intelligent.

But there were some things I believed in. Some things I had faith in. And faith isn’t about perfect attendance to services, or how much money you put on the little plate. It isn’t about...

Thomas was an annoying wiseass who tended to make everyone he met want to kill him, and when I have that much in common with someone, I can’t help but like him a little.

When everything goes to hell, the people who stand by you without flinching — they are your family.