02c. 1971 ADThomas has the kind of whiter-than-white boyish grin that makes women's panties spontaneously evaporate.Jim Butcher / quote ↗
03c. 1971 ADWhat'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?Jim Butcher / quote ↗
04c. 1971 ADThe demon trapped in the summoning circle screamed, slamming its crablike pincers against the unseen barrier, hurling its chitinous shoulders from side to side in an effort to escape the confinement. It couldn't. I kept my will on the circle, kept the demon from bursting free."Satisfied, Chauncy?" I asked it.The demon straightened its hideous form and said, in a perfect Oxford accent, "Quite. You understand, I must observe the formalities.Jim Butcher / quote ↗
05c. 1971 ADParanoid? Probably. But just because you're paranoid doesn't mean that there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face.Jim Butcher / quote ↗
06c. 1971 ADI 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.Jim Butcher / quote ↗
07c. 1971 ADI had about as much chance to do that as I did of backpacking my car to the top of Mount Rushmore.Jim Butcher / quote ↗
08c. 1971 ADThey'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 have held out for one of these gorillas who has learned to paint. The results would have been of similar quality, and they could have paid in fresh produce.Jim Butcher / quote ↗
09c. 1971 ADYou 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. "I did. Just now. You were there." She frowned thoughtfully. "Perhaps you have brain damage." "It would not shock me in the least," I said."Would you like me to cut open your skull and check, my lord?" she asked. Someone that short should not be that disturbing.Jim Butcher / quote ↗
10c. 1971 ADI'm going to use them to track him down and thwart him." "Thwart?" Sarissa asked."Thwart." I said. "To prevent someone from accomplishing something by means of visiting gratuitous violence upon his smarmy person.""I'm pretty sure that isn't the definition," Sarissa said."It is today.Jim Butcher / quote ↗
11c. 1971 ADEvil 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 Stupid. That might actually make a difference.Jim Butcher / quote ↗
12c. 1971 ADMost 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 you aren't looking.Jim Butcher / quote ↗
13c. 1971 ADThat’s the problem with you nearly immortal types,” I said. “You couldn’t spot a pop culture reference if it skittered up and implanted an embryo down your esophagus.Jim Butcher / quote ↗
14c. 1971 ADThe 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 the dry cleaner's. They're funny like that.Jim Butcher / quote ↗
16c. 1971 ADYou’re playing the creepy vibe a little hard,” I said. “Might as well go for broke, put on a black top hat and pipe in some organ music.Jim Butcher / quote ↗
17c. 1971 ADNo one just starts giggling and wearing black and signs up to become a villainous monster. How the hell do you think it happens? It happens to people. Just people. They make questionable choices, for what might be very good reasons. They make choice after choice, and none of them is slaughtering roomfuls of saints, or murdering hundreds of baby seals, or rubber-room irrational. But it adds up. And then one day they look around and realized that they're so far over the line that they can't remember where it was.Jim Butcher / quote ↗
18c. 1971 ADIt doesn't make you a monster to want, she said, her voice very gentle. It's what you do with it that matters.Jim Butcher / quote ↗
19c. 1971 ADShe studied my face for a long minute. "Are you going to help my mom?" It was a simple question. But how do you tell a child that things just aren't that simple, that some questions don't have simple answers--or any answer at all?Jim Butcher / quote ↗
20c. 1971 ADHarry," 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.Jim Butcher / quote ↗
21c. 1971 ADI 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 ME WHOSE SKULL TO CRACK WITH MY CLUB, DAMMIT!Jim Butcher / quote ↗
22c. 1971 ADIt isn't enough to stand up and fight darkness. You've got to stand apart from it, too. You've got to be different from it.Jim Butcher / quote ↗
23c. 1971 ADHonest. It's almost always best to go with honest. It means you never have to worry about getting your story straight.Jim Butcher / quote ↗
24c. 1971 ADA ship's captain was her master and the right hand of God in Heaven Himself, and concerned with matters of such grave importance that minor issues like food for the mortals in his command were entirely beneath him."I'll get someone else to take this duty, sir," Creedy said stoutly."The nonessential personnel are already on leave, XO," Grimm replied. "All the remaining hands are fully engaged in installing the new systems and making repairs. You know that.""But, sir," Creedy said. "What will the crewJim Butcher / quote ↗
