"Do you know what I think?" Marcone said."You think we should shoot Nicodemus in the back at the first opportunity and let Michael dismember him.""Yes."I drew my gun. "Okay."

"Courage is about learning how to function despite the fear, to put aside your instincts to run or give in completely to the anger born from fear. Courage is about using your brain and your heart when every cell of your body is screaming at your to fight or flee - and then following through on what you believe is the right thing to do."

"Doesn't matter how pretty you are. What's important is how pretty you feel. No one feels pretty when they hear "no" often enough."

"Life, Tavi reflected, seldom makes a gift of what one expects or plans for."

"You can have everything in the world, but if you don't have love, none of it means crap," he said promptly. "Love is patient. Love is kind. Love always forgives, trusts, supports, and endures. Love never fails. When every star in the heavens grows cold, and when silence lies once more on the face of the deep, three things will endure: faith, hope, and love." And the greatest of these is love," I finished. "That's from the Bible." First Corinthians, chapter thirteen," Thomas confirmed. "I paraphrased. Father makes all of us memorize that passage. Like when parents put those green yucky-face stickers on the poisonous cleaning products under the kitchen sink."

"Have you ever been approached by a grim-looking man, carrying a naked sword with a blade about ten miles long in his hand, in the middle of the night, beneath the stars on the shores of Lake Michigan? If you have, seek professional help. If you have not, then believe you me, it can scare the bejeezus out of you."

"Raw power doesn't determine all that you can do with magic. Focus matters, too. The better your focus is, the better you are at putting your power in one place at the same time, the more you can get done."

"You're reacted to the fear, but you haven't ever faced it and put it into the fight perspective. You have to make up your mind to overcome it."

"With a sense of humor like that, you could make a living as a garbage man anywhere in the country."

"Raith smiled. "There. You already feel yourself weakening. I've taken thousands like you, lovely child. Taken them and broken them. There was nothing they could do. There is nothing you can do. You were made to feel desire. I was made to use it against you. It is the natural cycle. Life and death. Mating and death. Predator and Prey."Raith leaned closer with each word, and brushed his lips against Murphy's throat as he spoke. "Born mortal. Born weak. And easily taken."..."And that's only a taste, child. When you know what it is to be truly taken later this night, you will understand that your life ended the moment I wanted you."

"I'm not a philosopher, Harry," [Michael] said. "But here's something for you to think about, at least. What goes around comes around. And sometimes you get what's coming around." He paused for a moment, frowning faintly, pursing his lips. "And sometimes you are what's coming around."

"But there were some things I believed in. Some things I had faith in. And faith isn't about perfect attendance to services, or how much money you put on the little plate. It isn't about going skyclad to the Holy Rites, or meditating each day upon the divine. Faith is about what you do. It's about aspiring to be better and nobler and kinder than you are. It's about making sacrifices for the good of others - even when there's not going to be anyone telling you what a hero you are."

"Tavi spent an eternity in misery, longing for death to bring sweet release from the unrelenting torment. The others gathered at the side of his bunk on the ship, keeping a deathwatch over him."I don't see what all the drama is about," Demos said, his quiet voice filled with habitual disinterst. "He's seasick. It will pass."~Captain's Fury."

"When people say the word "convention," they are usually referring to large gatherings of the employees of companies and corporations who attend a mass assembly, usually in a big hotel somewhere, for the purpose of pretending to learn stuff when they are in fact enjoying a free trip somewhere, time off work, and the opportunity to flirt with strangers, drink, and otherwise indulge themselves. The first major difference between a business convention and a fan-dom convention is that fandom doesn't bother with the pretenses. They're just there to have a good time. The second difference is the dress code- the ensembles at a fan convention tend to be considerably more novel."

"Honest. It's almost always best to go with honest. It means you never have to worry about getting your story straight."

"Think of every fairy-tale villainess you've ever heard of. Think of the wicked witches, the evil queens, the mad enchantresses. Think of the alluring sirens, the hungry ogresses, the savage she-beasts. Think of them and remember that somewhere, sometime, they've all been real."

"I wouldn't burden any decent system of faith by participating in it... I'm not agnostic. Just nonpartisan. Theological Switzerland, that's me."

"So we get a plan," I said. "Any suggestions?""Blow up the building," Kincaid said without looking up. "That works good for vampires. Then soak what's left in gasoline. Set it on fire. Then blow it all up again.""For future reference, I was sort of hoping for a suggestion that didn't sound like it came from that Bolshevik Muppet with all the dynamite."

"Thank God for imminent doomsday."

"Remember who you are. This creature wants to take it from you. Do not let him."

"I love being a wizard. Every day is like Disneyland."

"Now I feel like James Bond. Suave and intelligent, breaking all the codes while looking fabulous."

"When I'm in turmoil, when I can't think, when I'm exhausted and afraid and feeling very, very alone, I go for walks. It's just one of those things I do. I walk and I walk and sooner or later something comes to me, something to make me feel less like jumping off a building."

"Everyone is down on pain, because they forget something important about it: Pain is for the living. Only the dead don't feel it."

"I sidestepped the vampire's rush, and drove my half of the former blasting rod down at its back, Buffy-like.Maybe it works better on television."

"As far as the Council is concerned, the U.S. Wardens are a bunch of mushrooms.""Eh?""Kept in the dark and fed on bullshit."

"Rain was coming down in sheets. I could hear it, on the concrete outside and on the old building above me. It creaked and swayed in the spring thunderstorm and the wind, timbers gently flexing, wise enough with age to give a little, rather than put up stubborn resistance until they broke. I could probably stand to learn something from that."

"Journeyman stared at Grimm as though Grimm had just suggested that the engineer should prostitute his mother to pirates."

"It's one of the things that makes us different than they are, Harry. The blood on their hands does not make it right to bloody my own. My choices are measured against my own soul. Not against the stains on theirs."

"People always equate beauty with good, but it just ain't so."

"The course of history is determined not by battles, by sieges, or usurpation, but by the individuals. The strongest army is, at its most basic level, a collection of individuals. Their decisions, their passions, their foolishness, and their dreams shape the years to come. If there is any lesson to be learned from history, it is that all too often the fate of armies, of cities, of entire realms rests upon the actions of one person's decision, good or bad, right or wrong, big or small, can unwittingly change the world.But history can be quite the slattern. One never knows who that person is, where he might be, or what decision he might male.It is almost enough to make me believe in destiny."

"Isana laughed. "And you, lady? Are you a woman of conscience or of ambition?"The lady smiled. "That's a question rarely asked here at court.""And why is that?""Because a woman of conscience would tell you that she is a person of conscience. A woman of ambition would tell you that she is a person of conscience-only much more convincingly."

"What the hell kind of Hell was this supposed to be?"

"Don't mess with a wizard when he's wizarding!"

"You know how confusing the whole good-evil concept is for me."

"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."

"Son. Everyone dies alone. That's what it is. It's a door. It's one person wide. When you go through it, you do it alone. But it doesn't mean you've got to be alone before you go through the door. And believe me, you aren't alone on the other side."

"Nay, but prithee, with sprinkles 'pon it instead," I said solemnly, "and frosting of white."

"Murphy watched me thoughtfully for several empty seconds. Then she said, very gently, "You're a good man, Harry."I swallowed and bowed my head, made humble by the tone of her voice and the expression on her face, more than the words themselves.Not always rational," she said, smiling. "But you're the best kind of crazy."

"I was seducing shepherdesses when you weren't a twinkle in your great-grandcestor's eyes. I think I know what I'm doing."

"I've always felt that the best whips and chains are in the mind. With a little creativity, the physical ones are hardly necessary."

"It doesn't make you a monster to want, she said, her voice very gentle. It's what you do with it that matters."

"Isana felt her throat tighten. "We failed." Serai lifted her chin and patted Isana's arm firmly."We have not yet succeeded. There is a difference."

"Let come the forces of night! We will stand!" "We will get the hell out of here is what we will do," I muttered."

"Do you have a little white dress? I've had this deep-seated nurse fantasy about you, Murphy."

"I know how you feel," I said. "You run into something you totally don't get, and it's scary as hell. But once you learn something about it, it gets easier to handle. Knowledge counters fear. It always has."

"There should be a rule against your own inner monologue throwing around that much sarcasm."

"Most 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."

"Epic sex?" I sputtered. "By what standards, precisely, is sex judged to be epic?""And tons and tons of mortal simps like you used as pawns." Bob sighed happily, ignoring my question. "There are no words. It was like the Lord of the Rings and All My Children made a baby with the Macho Man Randy Savage and a Whac-A-Mole machine."

"What'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?"