Smiling always seems to annoy people more than actually insulting them. Or maybe I just have an annoying smile.

Harry,” she said quietly, “I know you must be angry.”I burn things to ash and smash holes in buildings when I’m angry,” I said. “I’m a couple of steps past that point right now.

You predicted quick victory. Now it’s going to get hopelessly complicated. Jesus, don’t you know any better than that by now?

Everything was perfectly healthy and normal here in Denial Land.

Technically,’ I said, “I’m not breaking any of the Laws of Magic. I’m not robbing you of your will, so I’m clear of the Fourth Law. And you didn’t get loose, so I’m clear of...

We have now left Reason and Sanity Junction. Next stop, Looneyville.

A succubus on the set. Strike that, the health-conscious kid sister made it two… succubuses. Succubusees? Succubi? Stupid Latin correspondence course.

When you die, do you want to feel ashamed of what you’ve done with your life? Feel ashamed of what your life meant?

It isn’t about being fair and equal. It’s about the difference between right and wrong.” He stared out at the bloody Elinarch. “And this was wrong.

It gets kind of zen after awhile, life is a journey, time is a river, the door is ajar.

I had about as much chance to do that as I did of backpacking my car to the top of Mount Rushmore.

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...

Oh,” the girl said, shaking her head. “Don’t be so simple. People adore monsters. They fill their songs and stories with them. They define themselves in relation to them. You know what a monster is,...

The last time I was at a supernatural shindig, I got poisoned and then everything there tried to kill me. So I burned the whole place to the ground.

So. You get handed a holy sword by an archangel, told to go fight the forces of evil, and you somehow remain an atheist. Is that what you’re saying?

Home is where, when you go there and tell people to get out, they have to leave.

You’re supposed to be a spirit of intellect. I don’t understand why you’re obsessed with sex.”Bob’s voice got defensive. “It’s an academic interest, Harry.””Oh yeah? Well maybe I don’t think it’s fair to let your...

Being a wizard gives you more power than most, but it doesn’t change your heart. We’re all human. We’re all of us equally naked before the jaws of pain.

I’ve always felt that the best whips and chains are in the mind. With a little creativity, the physical ones are hardly necessary.

Evil isn’t the real threat to the world. Stupid is just as destructive as Evil, maybe more so, and it’s a hell of a lot more common. What we really need is a crusade against...

I don’t know about your true form, but the weight of your ego sure is pushing the crust of the earth toward the breaking point.

Harry Dresden. Saving the world, one act of random destruction at a time.

You already beat yourself up for enough things that aren’t your fault. People who care don’t want to add to that.” He paused, and then added gently, “But you assumed it was about you.” I...

If I was on the road to Hell, at least I was going in style.

I’m dealing with a lot of scary things. I think you have to react to them. And you either laugh at them or you go insane.

Lea stood upon a fallen log ahead of us, staring ahead. Mouse walked up to her.Gggrrrr rawf arrrgggrrrrarrrr,” I said.Mouse gave me an impatient glance, and somehow–I don’t know if it was something in his...

Do you really think you can win?”Yeah. Hell, Ortega is only the third or fourth most disturbing thing I’ve tangled with today.”But even if you do win, what does it change?”Me getting kiilled now. That...

As far as the Council is concerned, the U.S. Wardens are a bunch of mushrooms.””Eh?””Kept in the dark and fed on bullshit.

I kept a straight face while my inner Neanderthal spluttered and then went on a mental rampage through a hypothetical produce section, knocking over shelves and spattering fruit everywhere in sheer frustration, screaming, ‘JUST TELL...

Things are not always as bad as they seem. Sometimes, the darkness only makes it easier to see the light.

That’s arrogance, Harry. ” he said, gently. “On a level so deep, you don’t even realize it exists. And do you know why it’s there?” “No?” I asked. He smiled again. “Because you have set...

Magic. It can get a guy killed.

In the name of the Pizza Lord. Charge!

I realized then what had happened.She had turned us–all of us, except for Mouse–into great, gaunt, long-legged hounds.Wonderful!” Lea said, pirouetting upon one toe, laughing. “Come, children!” And she leapt off into the jungle, nimble...

Man. Being mostly dead is hard on a guy.

I am the foremost collector of velvet Elvii in the city of Chicago,” I said at once. “Elvii?” Marcone inquired.”The plural would be Elvises, I guess,” I said. “But if I say that too often,...

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.

They’d paid some madman who thought he was a decorator a lot of money to make the place look hip and unique. Maybe it’s my lack of fashion sense talking, but I thought they should...

It’s one of the things that makes us different than they are, Harry. The blood on their hands does not make it right to bloody my own. My choices are measured against my own soul....

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.

If I lived through the next day or so, I needed to start keeping track of where these jokers liked to get their bloodthirsty freak on. It might give me an edge someday. Or at...

Likest thou jelly within thy doughnut?

Sure, we’d faced some things as children that a lot of kids don’t. Sure, Justin had qualified for his Junior de Sade Badge in his teaching methods for dealing with pain. We still hadn’t learned,...

Knowledge is the ultimate weapon. It always has been.

Monsters are born of pain, and grief, and loss, and anger. Your heart is full of them.–“And?”And it makes you vulnerable.

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...

Most of the bad guys in the real world don’t know that they are bad guys. You don’t get a flashing warning sign that you’re about to damn yourself. It sneaks up on you when...

Just remember that you’re on my list, Marcone. Soon as I get done with all the other evils in this town, you won’t be the lesser of them anymore.”Marcone stared at me with half-lidded eyes...

No one is an unjust villain in his own mind. Even – perhaps even especially – those who are the worst of us. Some of the cruelest tyrants in history were motivated by noble ideals,...

You,” Madeline said, her voice hollow and wheezing, “are like a bad case of herpes, wizard. You’re inconvenient, embarassing, no real threat, and you simply will not go away.