"The Shroud was old, and regarded as special, and people believed in it. That could be enough to give it a kind of power, all by itself."

"HARRY DRESDEN-WIZARD Lost Items Found. Paranormal Investigations. Consulting. Advice. Reasonable Rates. No Love Potions, Endless Purses, Parties, or Other Entertainment."

"Dresden's not gone, I said. I touched a hand lightly to my brow. "He's here. I touched Will's bare chest, on the left side. "Here. Without him, without what he's done over the years, you and I would never have been able to pull this off."No, he agreed. "Probably not. Definitely not."There are a lot of people he's taught. Trained. Defended. And he's been an example. No single one of us can ever be what he was. But together, maybe we can."

"There are things you can't walk away from. Not if you want to live with yourself afterward."

"I think that men ought to treat women like something other than weaker men with breasts."

"Harry," 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."

"I had about as much chance to do that as I did of backpacking my car to the top of Mount Rushmore."

"That's Doctor Smart-ass. I didn't spend eight years in insult college to be called Mister."

"Did you really save the world ?...- Mostly I was saving my own ass. Just happend that the world was in the same spot."

"I died. I died and someone made a clerical error and I am in Heaven."

"The human mind isn't a terribly logical or consistent place. Most people, given the choice to face a hideous or terrifying truth or to conveniently avoid it, choose the convenience and peace of normality. That doesn't make them strong or weak people, or good or bad people. It just makes them people."

"Everything was perfectly healthy and normal here in Denial Land."

"Knowledge is the ultimate weapon. It always has been."

"It was one of those moments that would have had dramatic music if my life were a movie, but instead I got a radio jingle for some kind of submarine sandwich place blaring over the store's ambient stereo. The movie ofmy life must be really low-budget."

"See, those who wield the primordial forces of creation have a long-running grudge with physics."

"You don't go walking into the proverbial lion's den lightly. You start with a good breakfast."

"It made me feel better. Mouse might not have been thesmartest creature on earth, but he was steady, kind, loyal, andwas possessed of the uncanny wisdom of beasts for knowingwhom to trust. I might not have been a superhero, but Mousethought that I was pretty darned cool. That meant something. Itwould have to be enough."

"There's nothing that makes you more insane than family. Or more happy. Or more exasperated. Or more . . . secure."

"Thomas was an annoying wiseass who tended to make everyone he met want to kill him, and when I have that much in common with someone, I can't help but like him a little."

"I put on the boots and kicked some monster ass."

"I know you haven't burned down any buildings in a while," she said, "but if you start feeling the need..."

"I choose my battles, Dresden. Not you." She looked up at me calmly. "Let me put this in terms that will get through your skull: My friend is going to save a child from monsters. I'm going with him. That's what friends do, Harry."

"Yes, I was standing on nothing but congealed starlight. Yes, I was walking up through a savage storm, the wind threatening to tear me off and throw me into the freezing waters of Lake Michigan far below. Yes, I was using a legendary and enchanted means of travel to transcend the border between one dimension and the next, and on my way to an epic struggle between ancient and elemental forces.But all i could think to say, between panting breaths, was, "Yeah. Sure. They couldn't possibly have made this an escalator."

"Anger is just anger. It isn't good. It isn't bad. It just is. What you do with it is what matters. It's like anything else. You can use it to build or to destroy. You just have to make the choice."Constructive anger," the demon said, her voice dripping sarcasm. Also known as passion," I said quietly. "Passion has overthrown tyrants and freed prisoners and slaves. Passion has brought justice where there was savagery. Passion has created freedom where there was nothing but fear. Passion has helped souls rise from the ashes of their horrible lives and build something better, stronger, more beautiful."

"Molly was arrested. Possession. I blinked at him. "She was possessed?"

"He had to give humans credit where it was due - they did seem to have a knack for building interesting places for cats to explore."

"This is Waldo Butters, and his geek penis is longer and harder than any of ours put together."

"He is a cat, Miss Lancaster. Asking him such questions is an exercise in futility."

"So. You get handed a holy sword by an archangel, told to go fight the forces of evil, and you somehow remain an atheist. Is that what you're saying?"

"If I lived through the next day or so, I needed to start keeping track of where these jokers liked to get their bloodthirsty freak on. It might give me an edge someday. Or at least a list of places that could use a nice burning down. I hadn't burned down a building in ages."

"Harry, life isn't simple. There is such a thing as black and white. Right and wrong. But when you're in the thick of things, sometimes it's hard for us to tell. You didn't do what you did for your own benefit. You did it so that you could protect others. That doesn't make it right - but it doesn't make you a monster, either. You still have free will. You still get to choose what you will do and what you will be and what you will become."

"Fear was wisdom in a situation like this, and he was pleased that Folly was obviously intelligent enough to know it. He hoped that she would use the fear to make her cleverer, rather than more foolish, but that was asking much of a human, relatively odd or not."

"I ask people impertinent questions. Hopefully turning up pertinent answers."

"Caring about someone isn't complicated. It isn't easy. But it isn't complicated, either. Kinda like lifting the engine block out of a car."

"Monsters are born of pain, and grief, and loss, and anger. Your heart is full of them.--"And?"And it makes you vulnerable."

"Every soul is special. They're all beautiful. They're all far more significant than anyone on this rock realizes. I think when people are at their best, they're acting in accordance with their soul. The ones who have gone bad don't have bad souls. They've just given up on keeping in touch with them."

"Laugh whenever you can. Keeps you from killing yourself when things are bad. That and vodka."

"The 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."

"Heroism doesn't pay very well. I try to be cold-blooded and money-oriented, but I keep screwing it up."

"Regardless of what I think about Islam or Wicca or any other religion, the fact is that it's a group of people. Every faith has its ceremonies. And since it's made up of people, every faith also has its assholes."

"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."

"You rush a miracle worker, you get lousy miracles!"

"Seedy wasn't a fair description for the place, because seeds imply eventual regrowth and renewal."

"She might be the Archive, but she's still a kid, Kincaid."He frowned and looked at me. "So?""So? Kids like cute."He blinked at me. "Cute?""Come on."I led him downstairs.On the lower level of the Oceanarium there's an inner ring of exhibits, too, containing both penguins and--wait for it--sea otters.I mean, come on, sea otters. They open abalone with rocks while floating on their backs.How much cuter does it get than small, fuzzy, floating, playful tool users with big, soft brown eyes?"

"Jobs are a part of life. Maybe you've heard of the concept. It's called work? See, what happens is that you suffer through doing annoying and humiliating things until you get paid not enough money. Like those Japanese game shows, only without all the glory."

"Revenge is like sex, Mister Dresden. It's best when it comes on slow, quiet, until it all seems inexorable."

"In the void, there is no distinction of east and west."Gwen blinked slightly at that. "I know all of those words, and yet when strung together like that I have no idea what they mean."

"Home is where, when you go there and tell people to get out, they have to leave."

"The last time I was at a supernatural shindig, I got poisoned and then everything there tried to kill me. So I burned the whole place to the ground."

"A succubus on the set. Strike that, the health-conscious kid sister made it two succubuses. Succubusees? Succubi? Stupid Latin correspondence course."