"You're in America now," I said. "Our idea of diplomacy is showing up with a gun in one hand and a sandwich in the other and asking which you'd prefer."

"Oh," the girl said, shaking her head. "Don't be so simple. People adore monsters. They fill their songs and stories with them. They define themselves in relation to them. You know what a monster is, young shade? Power. Power and choice. Monsters make choices. Monsters shape the world. Monsters force us to become stronger, smarter, better. They sift the weak from the strong and provide a forge for the steeling of souls. Even as we curse monsters, we admire them. Seek to become them, in some ways." Her eyes became distant. "There are far, far worse things to be than a monster."

"Man. Being mostly dead is hard on a guy."

"Billy squinted at me. "Why are you letting them go?""Because they're real.""How do you know?""The one I was holding crapped on my hand."

"Why? I asked him tiredly. "What would it have changed? What could you possibly have said that would have made a difference?"That I was your brother, Harry, he said. "That I loved you. That I knew a few things about denying the dark parts of your nature. And that we would get through it. He put his elblows on his knees and rested his forehead on his hands. "That we'd figure it out. That you weren't alone. Stab.Twist.He was right. It was just that simple."

"I have nightmares about hell, where all I do is add up numbers and try to have conversations with people like you."

"Are you always a smartass?'Nope. Sometimes I'm asleep."

"I love you." Why it worked right then, why the webbing of my godmother's spell frayed as though the words had been an open flame, I don't know. I haven't found any explanation for it. There aren't any magical words, really. The words just hold the magic. They give it a shape and a form, they make it useful, describe the images within. I'll say this, though: Some words have a power that has nothing to do with supernatural forces. They resound in the heart and mind, they live long after the sounds of them have died away, they echo in the heart and the soul. They have power, and that power is very real. Those three words are good ones."

"Bring it, Darth Bathrobe!"

"Well, I never been to much school, you understand, but it seems to me that you're assuming something you shouldn't assume... that God sees the world like you do; one thing at a time, from just one spot. Seems to me that he's supposed to be everywhere, know everything. ...Think about that; he knows what you're feeling, how you're hurting. Feels my pain, your pain like it was his own. Hell son, the question isn't how God could care about just one person; question is, how could he not?"

"That's the problem with you nearly immortal types, I said. "You couldn't spot a pop culture reference if it skittered up and implanted an embryo down your esophagus."

"Rowl reminded himself that cats were eternally patient, and that he would not simply explode if he did not fling himself from Littlemouse's arms and go exploring. Which was not to say that he could not do so if he wished, because cats were also their own masters. He decided that his patience was practically legendary- which was fortunate..."

"It rained toads the day the White Council came to town."

"Evil isn't the real threat to the world. Stupid is just as destructive as Evil, maybe more so, and it's a hell of a lot more common. What we really need is a crusade against Stupid. That might actually make a difference."

"Id me didn't have to be concerned with long-term consequences. He was my instinctive, primitive self, driven by my most primal impulses. I wondered, briefly, if 'id' and 'idiot' came from the same root."

"Hell's holy stars and freaking stones shit bells."

"The demon trapped in the summoning circle screamed, slamming its crablike pincers against the unseen barrier, hurling its chitinous shoulders from side to side in an effort to escape the confinement. It couldn't. I kept my will on the circle, kept the demon from bursting free."Satisfied, Chauncy?" I asked it.The demon straightened its hideous form and said, in a perfect Oxford accent, "Quite. You understand, I must observe the formalities."

"I still can't believe," Michael said, sotto voce, "that you came to the Vampires' Masquerade Ball dressed as a vampire."

"Death is just one more Path. One you'll come to in time."

"You're dead, son. Cheer is contraindicated."

"People love dogs. You can never go wrong adding a dog to the story."

"We are not going to die." Butters stared up at me, pale, his eyes terrified. "We're not?" "No. And do you know why?" He shook his head. "Because Thomas is too pretty to die. And because I'm too stubborn to die." I hauled on the shirt even harder. "And most of all because tomorrow is Oktoberfest, Butters, and polka will never die."

"Maybe this is what it feels like for civilians when they see cops doing some of the dirty work. A lot of times they don't understand what's happening. They see something they don't like and it upsets them-because they don't have the full story, aren't personally facing the problem, and don't know how much worse the alternative could be."

"Children run everywhere for a reason--it's fun. Grown-ups can forget that sometimes."

"A pair of dolphins swept by us in the water, flicking their heads out to get a look at us as they went. One of them made a chittering sound that wasn't very melodic. The other twitched its tail and splashed a little water our way, all in good fun. They weren't the attractive Flipper kind of dolphins. They were regular dolphins that aren't as pretty and don't get cast on television. Maybe they just refused to sell out and see a plastic surgeon. I held up a fist to them. Represent."

"The only good thing about having your back to the wall is that it makes it really easy to choose which way you're going to go."

"If you make some comment even obliquely alluding to menstruation or menopause and its effect on my judgment," Murphy interrupted, "I will break your arm in eleven places."

"It's tough for magic to argue with physics, most of the time."

"It bothered me that he was right. Without Sir Stuart's intervention, I'd have been dead again already.That's right--you heard me: dead again already.I mean, come on. How screwed up is your life (after- or otherwise) when you find yourself needing phrases like that?"

"They'd paid some madman who thought he was a decorator a lot of money to make the place look hip and unique. Maybe it's my lack of fashion sense talking, but I thought they should have held out for one of these gorillas who has learned to paint. The results would have been of similar quality, and they could have paid in fresh produce."

"I mean it," I said. "You're in danger.""Relax, Harry. I'm not letting anyone lick me, and I'm not looking anyone in the eyes. It's kind of like visiting New York."

"Rowl felt sure that Bridget's fragile feelings would be crushed if he denied her the pleasure of sharing her meat with him."

"When a single cat let loose a war cry, it was an unsettling sound. When two cats suddenly wailed at each other in a similar fashion, it was downright unne."

"I am blind and limited. I would be a fool think myself wise. And so, not knowing what the universe means, I can only try to be responsible with the knowledge, the strength, and the time given to me. I must be true to my heart."

"Fighting is never good. But sometimes necessary."

"...the cab of the truck heated up nicely, its windows fogging. I felt like a Dickens character. I thought about explaining that to Mouse, just to occupy my thoughts, but he was suffering enough without being forced to endure Dickens, even by proxy."

"Sleep is God. Go worship."

"I didn't want to believe that killing was deep inside of me. I didn't want to think about the part of me that took a dark joy in gathering all the power it could and using it as I saw fit, everything else be damned. There was power to be had in hatred, too, in anger and in lust, in selfishness and in pride. And I knew that there was some dark corner of me that would enjoy using magic for killing-and then long for more. That was black magic, and it was easy to use. Easy and fun. Like Legos."

"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.."

"There was a sound like a human yawn, and then the skull turned slightly toward me and asked, "What's up, boss?""Evil's afoot.""Well, sure," Bob said, "because it refuses to learn the metric system. Otherwise it'd be up to a meter by now."

"One ravishing dark-haired beauty wearing leather pants and strategically applied electrical tape, stared hard at me and, when she saw me looking, licked her lips very, very slowly. She trailed a fingertip over her chin, down across her throat, and down over her sternum and gave me a smile so wicked that it's parents should have sent it to military school."

"Many things are not as they seem: The worst things in life never are."

"Something like this will test you like nothing else," Mac said. "You're going to find out who you are, Harry. You're going to find out which principles you'll stand by to your death--and which lines you'll cross." He took my empty glass away and said, "You're heading into the badlands. It'll be easy to get lost."

"No one just starts giggling and wearing black and signs up to become a villainous monster. How the hell do you think it happens? It happens to people. Just people. They make questionable choices, for what might be very good reasons. They make choice after choice, and none of them is slaughtering roomfuls of saints, or murdering hundreds of baby seals, or rubber-room irrational. But it adds up. And then one day they look around and realized that they're so far over the line that they can't remember where it was."

"Susan hardly had begun to slow down when Tera appeared from between a couple of buildings and loped over to the car. I leaned forward, opened the door, and she got into the backseat. I threw her the extra clothes I had picked up, and she began to dress without comment.It worked," I said. "We did it."Of course it worked," Tera said. "Men are foolish. They will stare at anything female and naked."

"Fear is really quite tedious. She wanted to be rid of it as soon as possible."

"I'd made the vampire cry. Great. I felt like a real superhero. Harry Dresden, breaker of monsters' hearts."

"You're playing the creepy vibe a little hard, I said. "Might as well go for broke, put on a black top hat and pipe in some organ music."

"It gets kind of zen after awhile, life is a journey, time is a river, the door is ajar."

"Thomas has the kind of whiter-than-white boyish grin that makes women's panties spontaneously evaporate."