Dresden Files Dead Beat Quotes

Life is a journey. Time is a river. The door is ajar

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.

Time after time, history demonstrates that when people don't want to believe something, they have enormous skills of ignoring it altogether.

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.

In the action business, when you don't want to say you ran like a mouse, you call it 'taking cover.' It's more heroic.

Polka will never die.

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

Fear is a part of life. It's a warning mechanism. That's all. It tells you when there's danger around. Its job is to help you survive. Not cripple you into being unable to do it.

I'm so pretty, it's hard for me to think of myself as intelligent.

Sticks and stones may break your bones, but Chinese throwing stars get you a dozen stitches.

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.

When you do something stupid and die, it's pathetic,” I said. “When you do something stupid and survive it, then you get to call it impressive or heroic.

I parked in front of the Field Museum under a NO PARKING sign. There were a couple of actual spots I could have used, but the drive was even closer. Besides, I found it aesthetically satisfying to defy municipal code.

I'm brilliant as well as skilled," he said modestly. "It's a great burden, all of that on top of my angelic good looks. But I try to soldier on as best I can.

I didn't know this before, but as it turns out, Tyrannosaurs can really haul ass.

I mean, we're all going to die. We know that on an intellectual level. We figure it out when we're still fairly young, and it scares us so badly that we convince ourselves we're immortal for more than a decade afterwards.

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

If you go to your death rather than do everything you might to prevent what is happening, you are merely committing suicide and trying to make yourself feel better about it. That is the act of a coward. It is beneath contempt.

Screw up my life?" He stared at me for a second and then said, deadpan, "I'm a five-foot-three, thirty-seven-year-old, single, Jewish medical examiner who needs to pick up his lederhosen from the dry cleaners so that he can play in a one-man polka band at Oktoberfest tomorrow." He pushed up his glasses with his forefinger, folded his arms, and said, "Do your worst.

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.

My brief flash of relief and confidence melted away. Good thing it did, too. I'm sure the world would come to an end if I were allowed to feel a sense of relief and well-being for any length of time.

I'm sure that you psychotic necro-wannabes with delusions of godhood are all about sharing with your fellow maniacs.

I just stood there staring, because while I've seen a lot of weird things, I hadn't ever seen that.

On the whole, we're a murderous race. According to Genesis, it took as few as four people to make the planet too crowded to stand, and the first murder was a fratricide. Genesis says that in a fit of jealous rage, the very first child born to mortal parents, Cain, snapped and popped the first metaphorical cap in another human being. The attack was a bloody, brutal, violent, reprehensible killing. Cain's brother Abel probably never saw it coming. As I opened the door to my apartment, I was filled with a sense of empathic sympathy and intuitive understanding. For freaking Cain.

Harry?" Bob asked. "Are your feet wet? And can you see the pyramids?" I blinked. "What?" "Earth to Dresden," Bob said. "You are standing knee-deep in de Nile.

Nearly everyone underestimates how powerful the touch of another person's hand can be. The need to be touched is something so primal, so fundamentally a part of our existence as human beings that its true impact upon us can be difficult to put into words. That power doesn't necessarily have anything to do with sex, either. From the time we are infants, we learn to associate the touch of a human hand with safety, with comfort, with love.

I believe that there's a cloud for every silver lining,' I said.

Last year in the U.S. alone more than nine hundred thousand people were reported missing and not found... That's out of three hundred million, total population. That breaks down to about one person in three hundred and twenty-five vanishing. Every year.... Maybe it's a coincidence, but it's almost the same loss ratio experienced by herd animals on the African savannah to large predators.

I leaned my head back on the couch and closed my eyes. "I'm not sure what to do next. How are you as a sounding board?" "I can look interested and nod at appropriate moments," he said. "Good enough," I said.

My wallet was getting even more anorexic than usual. At this rate I wouldn't be able to afford to protect mankind from the perils of black magic. Hells bells, that would be really embarrassing.

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?

Like I said, magic comes from life, and especially from emotions. They're a source of the same intangible energy that everyone can feel when an autumn moon rises and fills you with a sudden sense of bone-deep excitement, or when the first warm breeze of spring rushes past your face, full of the scents of life, and drowns you in a sudden flood of unreasoning joy. The passion of mighty music that brings tears to your eyes, and the raw, bubbling, infectious laughter of small children at play, the bellowing power of a stadium full of football fans shouting "Hey!" in time to that damned song—they're all charged with magic. My magic comes from the same places. And maybe from darker places than that. Fear is an emotion, too. So is rage. So is lust. And madness. I'm not a particularly good person. I'm no Charles Manson or anything, but I'm not going to be up for canonization either. Though in the past, I think maybe I was a better person than I am today. In the past I hadn't seen so many people hurt and killed and terrorized by the same kind of power that damn well should have been making the world a nicer place, or at the least staying the hell away from it. I hadn't made so many mistakes back then, so many shortsighted decisions, some of which had cost people their lives. I had been sure of myself. I had been whole.

That's the worst part about the walking dead... the stains.

Bob wasn't precisely a friend to me but... I was used to him. In a way he was family, the mouthy, annoying, irritable cousin who was always insulting you but who was definitely at Thanksgiving dinner. I had never considered the possibility that one day he might be something else.

I can disintegrate a virgin's inhibitions at fifty paces, but I can't last two weeks at a job where I'm wearing a stupid hairnet and a paper hat.

It gets sort of Zen after a while,” Butters said brightly. “Life is a journey. Time is a river. The door is a jar.

This is bigger than me,” he said finally. “It’s bigger than polka, even. So I guess I’ll help.

Because Thomas is too pretty to die. And because I'm too stubborn to die. And most of all because tomorrow is Oktoberfest, Butters, and polka will never die

Who,” said the man, his accent thick and British, “are you?” “The Great Pumpkin,” I responded. “I’ve risen from the pumpkin patch a bit early because Butters is just that nifty. And you are?

This never happens again," I said quietly. "You try to get to me through other mortals again and I'll kill you." Mavra's rotted lips turned up at one corner. "No, you won't," she said in her dusty voice. "You don't have that kind of power." "I can get it," I said. "But you won't," she responded, mockery in her tone. "It wouldn't be right." I stared at her for a full ten seconds before I said, in a very quiet voice, "I've got a fallen angel tripping all over herself to give me more power. Queen Mab has asked me to take the mantle of Winter Knight twice now. I've read Kemmler's book. I know how the Darkhallow works. And I know how to turn necromancy against the Black Court." Mavra's filmed eyes flashed with anger. I continued to speak quietly, never raising my voice. "So once again, let me be perfectly clear. If anything happens to Murphy and I even think you had a hand in it, fuck right and wrong. If you touch her, I'm declaring war on you. Personally. I'm picking up every weapon I can get. And I'm using them to kill you. Horribly.

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.

Polka will never die!” Butters screamed. “I can’t believe I’m hearing this,” Thomas muttered.

Cowl's apprentice was tough and competent, but no amount of training or forethought can prepare you for the sight of an angry dinosaur coming to eat your ass.

I poke at my skull with a finger. It didn't feel soft or anything. I didn't feel insane. But if you'd really lost it, would you have enough left to know? Crazy people never thought they were crazy. "I've always talked to things," I said. "And to myself." "Good point," myself agreed with me. "Unless that means you've been nuts all along." "I don't need wiseass remarks," I told myself severely. "There's work to do. So shut up.

I tried not to be too obviously interested, and fumbled my notebook and trusty pencil from my duster’s pocket.

You couldn’t guess at a breed to look at him, but at least one of his parents must have been a wooly mammoth.

A house doesn't make a home. When the place has got history, family, emotions, worries, joys worked into the wood, that's when it gets a solid threshold.

He nodded. “Someone really would get suspicious if they saw you roaming around. If I need you I’ll give you a signal.” “What signal?” “I’ll imitate the scream of a terrified little girl,” he said with a waggle of his eyebrows. He headed out the door. “Back in a minute.

Mab narrowed her eyes, and a little smile graced her lips. “Impudent,” she said. “It’s sweet on you.

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

I do not perceive myself to be mad. But if I were truly mad, would I be able to tell?

Race me back. Beat me there, and I’ll tell you.” I blinked. “What kind of kindergarten crap is that?” His grey eyes flashed with anger. “You want to know what it’s like? Beat me down the beach.” “Of all the ridiculous, immature nonsense,” I said. Then I hooked a foot behind Thomas’s calf, shoved him down to the sand, and took off down the beach at a dead sprint.

I rode the dinosaur into the stream of zombies following in the Wardens’ wake and let her go to town. Sue chomped and stomped and smacked zombies fifty feet through the air with swinging blows of her snout. Her tail batted one particularly vile-looking zombie into the brick wall of the nearest building, and the zombie hit so hard and so squishily that it just stuck to the wall like a refrigerator magnet, arms and legs spread in a sprawl.

Thomas looked like someone's painting of the forgotten Greek god of body cologne. He had long hair so dark that light itself could not escape it, and even fresh from the shower it was starting to curl. His eyes were the color of thunderclouds, and he never did a single moment of exercise to earn the gratuitous amount of ripple in his musculature. He was wearing jeans and no shirt--his standard household uniform. I once saw him answer the door to speak to a female missionary in the same outfit, and she'd assaulted him in a cloud of forgotten copies of The Watchtower. The tooth marks she left had been interesting.

Here’s something else I bet you didn’t know about Tyrannosaurs: they don’t corner well.

The energy of night was far different than that of the daylight—not inherently evil, but wilder, more dangerous, more unpredictable.

It only means what you decide it means.

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.

It doesn't take much power to hurt someone," she said. "It's far easier than healing the damage.

But... my choices haven't always been very good," I said. "Whose have?" he asked.

I even heard that they can bring people back from the dead." "Jesus," Butter swore. "I kinda doubt they had anything to do with that one." "No, no, I meant --" "I know what you meant. t was a joke, Butters.

Listen to me,” I snarled. “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.” He blinked. “Polka will never die!” I shouted at him. “Say it!” He swallowed. “Polka will never die?” “Again!” “P-p-polka will never die,” he stammered. I shook him a little. “Louder!” “Polka will never die!” he shrieked. “We’re going to make it!” I shouted. “Polka will never die!” Butters screamed. “I can’t believe I’m hearing this,” Thomas muttered. I shot my half brother a warning look, released Butters, and said, “Get ready to open the door.

Screw up my life?” He stared at me for a second and then said, deadpan, “I’m a five-foot-three, thirty-seven-year-old, single, Jewish medical examiner who needs to pick up his lederhosen from the dry cleaners so that he can play in a one-man polka band at Oktoberfest tomorrow.” He pushed up his glasses with his forefinger, folded his arms, and said, “Do your worst.

Nearly everyone underestimates how powerful the touch of another person’s hand can be. The need to be touched is something so primal, so fundamentally a part of our existence as human beings that its true impact upon us can be difficult to put into words. That power doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with sex, either. From the time we are infants, we learn to associate the touch of a human hand with safety, with comfort, with love.

I know what it’s like to lose it.

How bad is it?” “They drafted me,” I said. “That’s bad, all right,” Bob said cheerfully.

I’m sure the world would come to an end if I were allowed to feel a sense of relief and well-being for any length of time.

I’m so pretty, it’s hard for me to think of myself as intelligent.

It was the same principle as cleaning a really messy room. You don't think about everything you have to do. You focus on one thing and get it done, then more onto the next.

Murphyonic?" "Sure," Butters said. "You exude a Murphyonic field. Anything that can go wrong does.

So once again, let me be perfectly clear. If anything happens to Murphy and I even *think* you had a hand in it, fuck right and wrong. If you touch her, I'm declaring war on you.

Fear is a funny thing. In the right light, even tiny and insignificant fears can suddenly grow, swelling up to monstrous proportions.

My pledge of honor upon it.

The Wardens put on their own epic production of Fahrenheit 451," Bob said. "They spent about twenty years finding and destroying copies.

If you go to your death rather than do everything you might to prevent what is happening, you are merely committing suicide and trying to make yourself feel better about it. That is the act of a coward.

Butters," I said, "Don't give me statistics on heart failure. Fear is a part of life. It's a warning mechanism. That's all. It tells you when there's danger around. Its job is to help you survive. Not cripple you into being unable to do it.

Somewhere along the way, their passion had become bottled anger. The anger had fermented into bitter hatred. Then the hatred had fed upon itself, gnawing away at them over years, even decades, until only a shell of cold iron and colder hate remained.

Nearly everyone underestimates how powerful the touch of another person's hand can be. The need to be touched is something so primal, so fundamentally a part of our existence as human beings that its true impact upon us can be difficult to put into words.

It seemed like people could go one of two ways: Either freak out and start rioting, or they actually act like human beings in trouble out to, and look out for one another. When LA blacked out, there had been big time rioting. In New York, people had pulled together.

I did tell you," I said. "I told you at Mac's that I'd give you a ride home, but I had to run an errand first." Thomas scowled. "An *errand* is getting a tank of gas or picking up a carton of milk or something. It is *not* getting chased by flying purple pyromaniac gorillas hurling incendiary poo.

Death isn’t something anyone likes to think about, but the fact is that you can’t get out of it. No matter what you do, how much you exercise, how religiously you diet, or meditate, or pray, or how much money you donate to your church, there is a single hard, cold fact that faces everyone on earth: One day it’s going to be over. One day the sun will rise, the world will turn, people will go about their daily routines—only you won’t be in it. You’ll be still. And cold. And despite every religious faith, the testimony of near-death eyewitnesses, and the imaginations of storytellers throughout history, death remains the ultimate mystery. No one truly, definitively knows what happens after. And that’s assuming there is an after. We all go there blind to whatever is out there in the darkness beyond. Death. You can’t escape it. You. Will. Die.

The door is ajar,” the dashboard said. “It won’t shut up,” I explained to him. “It gets sort of Zen after a while,” Butters said brightly. “Life is a journey. Time is a river. The door is a jar.

Here's something else I bet you didn't know about Tyrannosaurs: they don't corner well

When you do something stupid and die, it’s pathetic,” I said. “When you do something stupid and survive it, then you get to call it impressive or heroic.

I set things down and locked up my wards and the heavy steel door I’d had installed after a big, bad demon had huffed and puffed and blown down the original. It wasn’t until I had them all firmly secured that I let out a slow breath and started to relax. The living room was lit only by the embers of the fire and a few tiny flames. From the kitchen alcove, I heard the soft thumping sound of Mouse’s tail wagging against the icebox

Mouse liked going places in the car. That the place had happened to be a clandestine meeting in a freaking graveyard didn’t seem to spoil anything for him. It was all about the journey, not the destination. A very Zen soul, was Mouse.

Death isn’t something anyone likes to think about, but the fact is that you can’t get out of it. No matter what you do, how much you exercise, how religiously you diet, or meditate, or pray, or how much money you donate to your church, there is a single hard, cold fact that faces everyone on earth: One day it’s going to be over. One day the sun will rise, the world will turn, people will go about their daily routines—only you won’t be in it. You’ll be still. And cold. And despite every religious faith, the testimony of near-death eyewitnesses, and the imaginations of storytellers throughout history, death remains the ultimate mystery. No one truly, definitively knows what happens after. And that’s assuming there is an after. We all go there blind to whatever is out there in the darkness beyond. Death. You can’t escape it. You. Will. Die. That’s a bitter, hideously concrete fact to endure—but believe me, you get it in a whole new range of color and texture when you face it standing over your own open grave.

If she was pretty, I’d just turn on the Ramirez charm and have her eating out of my hand,” he said. “But I can’t take chances with that kind of power if I’m not sure she’s pretty. Used recklessly, it could endanger innocent bystanders or land me in bed with an ugly girl.

Sit down,” she said,

Knowledge counters fear.

Dead silence. “Drink some coffee,” I told him. He did. “Scared?” “Yeah.” “Good,” I said. “That’s smart.” “Well, then,” he murmured. “I m-must be the smartest guy in the whole world.

I’ve even heard that they can bring people back from the dead.” “Jesus,” Butters swore. “I kinda doubt they had anything to do with that one.

My wallet was getting even more anorexic than usual. At this rate I wouldn’t be able to afford to protect mankind from the perils of black magic. Hell’s bells, that would be really embarrassing.

I don’t want to get killed. Or arrested. I’m really bad at being arrested. Or killed.

My God,” he said. “That was…that was so stupid.” “Actually, when you survive it gets reclassified as ‘courageous.

Bob wasn’t precisely a friend to me but…I was used to him. In a way he was family, the mouthy, annoying, irritable cousin who was always insulting you but who was definitely at Thanksgiving dinner. I had never considered the possibility that one day he might be something else.

I’m brilliant as well as skilled,” he said modestly. “It’s a great burden, all of that on top of my angelic good looks. But I try to soldier on as best I can.

The net result of it was that some streets were bright with the headlights of military trucks and patrolled by National Guardsmen, and some of them were as black and empty as a crooked politician’s heart.

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.

Fear is a part of life. It’s a warning mechanism. That’s all. It tells you when there’s danger around. Its job is to help you survive. Not cripple you into being unable to do it.