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“What do we do?” “Hell if I know. The best we can.”
They say civilization is a thin veneer over barbarism.
I shook myself. I was terrified for them, for the people who were my friends—but if I stood there feeling terrified and sick and worried and helpless to protect them, I wasn’t going to do them any good.
Doesn’t matter where you go in the world—if you’re good at your job, people who are good enough at theirs to see it will respect you for it.
The old man grunted. “Do you remember the hardest lesson of power?” “Knowing when not to use it?”
There was no time to break down, no time for tears. War leaves you precious little time to be human. It’s one of the more horrible realities about it.
We rode through pandemonium. Pandemonium means “the place where all demons dwell.” And the demons were out tonight.
somewhere deep down inside my guts, there emerged a solid, unalterable realization of truth: Some things should hurt. Some things should leave you with scars. Some things should haunt your nightmares. Some things should be burned into memory.
“I hate that you’re here with me,” I said. “I know.” “And I’m glad that you’re here with me.” “I know.”
Maybe the process of becoming something horrible wasn’t about temptation to sin, forbidden delights, and bad impulse control. Maybe it was about choosing to throw your soul into a meat grinder, over and over again. Until what remained couldn’t even be seen as a soul any longer. Maybe the real monsters, the big bad monsters, aren’t created. They’re forged. Hammered. One blow at a time. I was mortal once.
The real battle for your own soul isn’t about falling from a great height; it’s about descending, or not, one choice at a time.
“What kind of idiot wants to fight fair?” I complained. “This is terrible fight,” Sanya said. “But is only one we have. ‘Fair’ is many steps up ladder from where we are now.”
“The monsters are coming,” I said. “And they’ll kill everyone in this town if they can. Unless we kill them first.” The crowd let out a sound that was a lot like a hungry growl. I found myself smiling, more and more widely. Yeah, the world was full of monsters and demons. But it was a human world. It was our world because we were the cleverest, most resourceful, and most dangerous things in it. Maybe my little army wasn’t the most martial representation of humanity, but people fighting for their homes had, historically, done incredible things. Time for history to repeat itself.
“What’s going to happen after this, do you think?” “I don’t,” she said. “Because I’m doing today first.”
“Harry. You can’t fix tomorrow until it gets here.” “Which is weird, because you can screw it up from decades away.”
I’m not saying pain is what defines us as human beings. But it is, in many ways, what unites us. We all recognize other people in pain. Damned near all of us are moved to do something about it when we see it. It’s our common enemy, though it isn’t, really, an enemy. Pain is, at least when our bodies are working properly, a teacher. A really tough, really strict, and perfectly fair teacher.
Battles are not graded on a curve, ever. You survive or you don’t. And everyone you’ll ever face in a battle to the death is undefeated.
My people were dying. I could feel it. Feel their pain. Their terror. Their confusion. The air seethed with magical potential. I drew my blasting rod, gathered my will, dropped the shield, and screamed, “FUEGO!” Because nothing cuts through bullshit like a proper fireball.
I spun back to the enemy, brought my shield up—and stood tall. “You!” I said, relishing the moment. “Shall not! Pass!”
Like I said. When Mab decides it’s time to do business, she doesn’t just sit around waiting for things to happen. And that’s how maybe two hundred and fifty fae charged five thousand Fomor at the Battle of the Bean.
Ethniu glanced that way, then turned back to us, contempt scorching the edges of her smile. But the fool, the Knight of Faith, held his ground. And it turned out that I was wrong, and the fool was right. Sometimes that’s all faith is. Sometimes that’s enough.
In a war, nobody plays fair. That’s what war is.
“Apocalypse isn’t an event,” Nemesis murmured. “It is a frame of mind.”
“All warriors die, Dresden,” Gard replied. “And if they die in the course of being true to their duty and honor, most would count that a fitting end to a worthy life. She did.”
everyone in politics enjoys giving other people’s money to good causes.
“Who exactly do you think you’re teaching, here, Socrates?”
It’s okay if you’re a mess for a while. That’s how you heal from stuff like this.
“If you love them,” I said, “you kinda have to build that on something real. That means telling them the truth. It’s not a very good way to build real love and trust. It’s just the only way.”
