Emma > Emma's Quotes

“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”
― Oscar Wilde

“I let out a battle cry. Sure, a lot of people might have mistaken it for a sudden yelp of unmanly fear, but trust me. It was a battle cry.”
― Jim Butcher, My Big Fat Supernatural Wedding

“Ack!" I said.

Fearless master of the witty dialogue, that's me.”
― Jim Butcher, Changes

“Da. This is going very well already."

Thomas barked out a laugh. "There are seven of us against the Red King and his thirteen most powerful nobles, and it's going well?"

Mouse sneezed.

"Eight," Thomas corrected himself. He rolled his eyes and said, "And the psycho death faerie makes it nine."

"It is like movie," Sanya said, nodding. "Dibs on Legolas."

"Are you kidding?" Thomas said. "I'm obviously Legolas. You're . . ." He squinted thoughtfully at Sanya and then at Martin. "Well. He's Boromir and you're clearly Aragorn."

"Martin is so dour, he is more like Gimli." Sanya pointed at Susan. "Her sword is much more like Aragorn's."

"Aragorn wishes he looked that good," countered Thomas.

"What about Karrin?" Sanya asked.

"What--for Gimli?" Thomas mused. "She is fairly--"

"Finish that sentence, Raith, and we throw down," said Murphy in a calm, level voice.

"Tough," Thomas said, his expression aggrieved. "I was going to say 'tough.' "

As the discussion went on--with Molly's sponsorship, Mouse was lobbying to claim Gimli on the basis of being the shortest, the stoutest, and the hairiest--

"Sanya," I said. "Who did I get cast as?"

"Sam," Sanya said.

I blinked at him. "Not . . . Oh, for crying out loud, it was perfectly obvious who I should have been."

Sanya shrugged. "It was no contest. They gave Gandalf to your godmother. You got Sam.”
― Jim Butcher, Changes

“See? This is why I'm not religious. I couldn't possibly keep my mouth shut long enough to get along with everyone else.”
― Jim Butcher, White Night

“Loneliness is a hard thing to handle. I feel it, sometimes. When I do, I want it to end. Sometimes, when you're near someone, when you touch them on some level that is deeper than the uselessly structured formality of casual civilized interaction, there's a sense of satisfaction in it. Or at least, there is for me. It doesn't have to be someone particularly nice. You don't have to like them. You don't even have to want to work with them. You might even want to punch them in the nose. Sometimes just making that connection is its own experience, its own reward.”
― Jim Butcher, White Night

“Murphy hung up and I said, to the still-open line, "Hey, if you've got someone watching my place, could you call the cops if anyone tries to steal my Star Wars poster? It's an original."

Then I vindictively hung up on the FBI. It made my inner child happy.”
― Jim Butcher, Changes

“I don't want to live in a world where the strong rule and the weak cower. I'd rather make a place where things are a little quieter. Where trolls stay the hell under their bridges and where elves don't come swooping out to snatch children from their cradles. Where vampires respect the limits, and where the faeries mind their p's and q's. My name is Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden. Conjure by it at your own risk. When things get strange, when what goes bump in the night flicks on the lights, when no one else can help you, give me a call. I'm in the book.”
― Jim Butcher, Storm Front

“The married thing. Sometimes I look at it and feel like someone from a Dickens novel, standing outside in the cold and staring in at Christmas dinner. Relationships hadn't ever really worked for me. I think it's had something to do with all the demons, ghosts, and human sacrifice.”
― Jim Butcher, Grave Peril

“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.”
― Jim Butcher, Death Masks

“I don't believe in faeries!”
― Jim Butcher, Summer Knight

“Hope is a force of nature. Don't let anyone tell you different.”
― Jim Butcher, Changes

“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 body language or what--I became aware that he was telling me to sit down and shut up or he'd come over and make me.

I sat down. Something in me really didn't like that idea, but when I looked around, I saw that everyone else had done it too, and that made me feel better.

Mouse said, again in what sounded like perfectly clear English, "Funny. Now restore them."

Lea turned to look at the big dog and said, "Do you dare to give me commands, hound?"

Not your hound," Mouse said. I didn't know how he was doing it. His mouth wasn't moving or anything. "Restore them before I rip your ass off. Literally rip it off."

The Leanansidhe tilted her head back and let out a low laugh. "You are far from your sources of power here, my dear demon."

I live with a wizard. I cheat." He took a step toward her and his lips peeled up from his fangs in unmistakable hostility. "You want to restore them? Or do I kill you and get them back that way?"

Lea narrowed her eyes. Then she said, "You're bluffing."

One of the big dog's huge, clawed paws dug at the ground, as if bracing him for a leap, and his growl seemed to . . . I looked down and checked. It didn't seem to shake the ground. The ground was actually shaking for several feet in every direction of the dog. Motes of blue light began to fall from his jaws, thickly enough that it looked quite a bit like he was foaming at the mouth. "Try me."

The Leanansidhe shook her head slowly. Then she said, "How did Dresden ever win you?"

He didn't," Mouse said. "I won him.”
― Jim Butcher, Changes

“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 and swift as a doe.

A bunch of us dogs stood around for a moment, just sort of staring at one another.

And Mouse said, in what sounded to me like perfectly understandable English, "That bitch.”
― Jim Butcher, Changes

“It came charging toward me, several hundred pounds of angry-looking monster, and I did the only thing any reasonable wizard could have done.
I turned around and ran like hell.”
― Jim Butcher, Death Masks

“You're such a cynic," Molly said.

"I think cynics are playful and cute.”
― Jim Butcher, Changes

“How long have you been a Wiccan?'
'A what?'
'A pagan. A witch.'
'I'm not a witch,' I said, glancing out the door. 'I'm a wizard.'
Sanya frowned. 'What is the difference?'
'Wizard has a Z'
He looked at me blankly.
'No one appreciates me.' I muttered.”
― Jim Butcher, Death Masks

“Black Court vampires. I just shortened it some."

Ebenezar tsked. "Blampires. That's the problem with you young people. Shortening all the words.”
― Jim Butcher, Blood Rites

“The world is not a wish-granting factory.”
― John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

“Some tourists think Amsterdam is a city of sin, but in truth it is a city of freedom. And in freedom, most people find sin.”
― John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

“Harry Dresden. Saving the world, one act of random destruction at a time.”
― Jim Butcher, Mean Streets

“Many things are not as they seem: The worst things in life never are.”
― Jim Butcher, White Night

“It isn't good to hold on too hard to the past. You can't spend your whole life looking back. Not even when you can't see what lies ahead. All you can do is keep on keeping on, and try to believe that tomorrow will be what it should be—even if it isn't what you expected.”
― Jim Butcher, Death Masks

“From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

“Friendship ... is born at the moment when one man says to another "What! You too? I thought that no one but myself . . .”
― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

“There is neither happiness nor misery in the world; there is only the comparison of one state with another, nothing more. He who has felt the deepest grief is best able to experience supreme happiness. We must have felt what it is to die, Morrel, that we may appreciate the enjoyments of life.
" Live, then, and be happy, beloved children of my heart, and never forget, that until the day God will deign to reveal the future to man, all human wisdom is contained in these two words, 'Wait and Hope.”
― Alexandre Dumas

“I think I've discovered the secret of life -- you just hang around until you get used to it.”
― Charles Schultz

“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”
― Nelson Mandela

“I am fundamentally an optimist. Whether that comes from nature or nurture, I cannot say. Part of being optimistic is keeping one's head pointed toward the sun, one's feet moving forward. There were many dark moments when my faith in humanity was sorely tested, but I would not and could not give myself up to despair. That way lays defeat and death.”
― Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom: Autobiography of Nelson Mandela

“I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.”
― Nelson Mandela