Fool Moon (The Dresden Files, #2)

by Jim Butcher

I found him in a Dumpster one day when he was a kitten and he promptly adopted me. Despite my struggles, Mister had been an understanding soul, and I eventually came to realize that I was a part of his little family, and by his gracious consent was allowed to remain in his apartment. Cats. Go figure.

Magic was more than just an energy source, like electricity or petroleum. It was power, true, but it was a lot of other things as well. It was all that was deepest and most powerful in nature, in the human heart and soul.

It’s all right to be afraid. You just don’t let it stop you from doing your job.

“A stuffed animal, man!” I roared at him. “Don’t mess with a wizard when he’s wizarding!”

“Work,” I said. I closed my eyes. She nodded. “Work.” Her fingers tightened on my shirt, and she looked up at me, dark eyes swimming with tears, still more on the smooth lines of her cheek. “I don’t want to lose you now. I don’t want the work to be all that’s left.”

It 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.”

Anything with that much power and that little control, that utter lack of concern for anything but self is evil in the most effective sense of the word.