01UndatedThey don't make morgues with windows. In fact, if the geography allows for it, they hardly ever make morgues above the ground. I guess it's partly because it must be eisier to refrigerate a bunch of coffin-sized chambers in a room insulated by the earth. But that can't be all there is to it. Under the earth means a lot more than relative altitude. It's where dead things fit. Graves are under the earth. So are Hell, Gehenna, Hades, and a dozen other reported afterlives.Maybe it says somthing about people. Maybe for us, under the earth is a subtle and profound statement. Maybe ground level provides us with a kind of symbolic boundary marker, an artificial construct that helps us remember that we are alive. Mabye it helps us push death's shadow back from our lives.I live in a basement apartment and like it. What does that say about me?Probably that I overanalyze things.Jim Butcher / quote ↗
02UndatedIt bothered me that he was right. Without Sir Stuart's intervention, I'd have been dead again already.That's right--you heard me: dead again already.I mean, come on. How screwed up is your life (after- or otherwise) when you find yourself needing phrases like that?Jim Butcher / quote ↗
04UndatedI'm not a Wiccan. I'm not big on churches of any kind, despite the fact that I've spoken, face-to-face, with an archangel of the Almighty.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 going skyclad to the Holy Rites, or meditating each day upon the divine.Faith is about what you do. It's about aspiring to be better and nobler and kinder than you are. It's about making sacrifices for the good of others--even when there's not going to be anyone telling you what a hero you are.Faith is a power of its own, and one even more elusive and difficult to define than magic.Jim Butcher / quote ↗
05UndatedBut 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 free will. Which would presumably - and evidently - include the freedom to be incorrect when translating one language into another.""Stop making me think. I'm believing over here.Jim Butcher / quote ↗
07UndatedI 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.Jim Butcher / quote ↗
08UndatedI 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 time given to me. I must be true to my heart.Jim Butcher / quote ↗
09UndatedHOW CAN YOU KNOW THIS?” the Voice demanded.“I look at things and think about them,” Folly replied. “And use my intuition, of course, and deduction and induction, as well as any historical or theoretical models that seem to apply.Jim Butcher / quote ↗
10UndatedIsana felt her throat tighten. "We failed." Serai lifted her chin and patted Isana's arm firmly."We have not yet succeeded. There is a difference.Jim Butcher / quote ↗
12UndatedI sometimes give myself excellent advice. Occasionally, I even listen to it.Jim Butcher / quote ↗
13UndatedBob, 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 / quote ↗
14UndatedLet come the forces of night! We will stand!" "We will get the hell out of here is what we will do," I muttered.Jim Butcher / quote ↗
15UndatedYou'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 academia go peeping in other people's hoJim Butcher / quote ↗
16UndatedSee, those who wield the primordial forces of creation have a long-running grudge with physics.Jim Butcher / quote ↗
17UndatedThe characters within a book were, from a certain point of view, identical on some fundamental level ‒ there weren't any images of them, no physical tangibility whatsoever. They were pictures in the reader's head, constructs of imagination and ideas, given shape by the writer's work and skill and the reader's imagination. Parents, of a sort.Jim Butcher / quote ↗
18UndatedIt's all right to be afraid. You just don't let it stop you from doing your job.Jim Butcher / quote ↗
19UndatedKarrin."She looked up at me. She looked very young somehow."Remember what I said yesterday," I said. "You're hurt. But you'll get through it. You'll be okay."She closed her eyes tightly. "I'm scared. So scared I'm sick.""You'll get through it.""What if I don't?"I squeezed her fingers. "Then I will personally make fun of you every day for the rest of your life," I said. "I will call you a sissy girl in front of everyone you know, tie frilly aprons on your car, and lurk in the parking lot at CPD and whistle and tell you to shake it, baby. Every. Single. Day."Murphy's breath escaped in something like a hiccup. She opened her eyes, a mix of anger and wary amusement easing into them in place of fear. "You do realize I'm holding a gun, right?Jim Butcher / quote ↗
20UndatedFear 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.Jim Butcher / quote ↗
21UndatedCourage is about learning how to function despite the fear, to put aside your instincts to run or give in completely to the anger born from fear. Courage is about using your brain and your heart when every cell of your body is screaming at your to fight or flee - and then following through on what you believe is the right thing to do.Jim Butcher / quote ↗
22UndatedFear has a lot of flavors and textures. There's a sharp, silver fear that runs like lightning through your arms and legs, galvanizes you into action, power, motion. There's heavy, leaden fear that comes in ingots, piling up in your belly during the empty hours between midnight and morning, when everything is dark, every problem grows larger, and every wound and illness grows worse. And there is coppery fear, drawn tight as the strings of a violin, quavering on one single note that cannot possibly be sustained for a single second longer—but goes on and on and on, the tension before the crash of cymbals, the brassy challenge of the horns, the threatening rumble of the kettle drums. That's the kind of fear I felt. Horrible, clutching tension that left the coppery flavor of blood on my tongue. Fear of the creatures in the darkness around me, of my own weakness, the stolen power the Nightmare had torn from me. And fear for those around me, for the folk who didn't have the power I had.Jim Butcher / quote ↗
23UndatedMy dear cousin has a very odd relationship with fear -- though mostly she's too busy to be bothered with it.Jim Butcher / quote ↗
24UndatedFear is really quite tedious. She wanted to be rid of it as soon as possible.Jim Butcher / quote ↗
