Top 500 Jim Butcher Quotes (2025 Update)
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451. “I am pure of heart and mind,” I told her. “I cannot be corrupted.”

— Jim Butcher

452. “It was like a fire in my thoughts, my concentration, burning ever more brightly, more pure, refining my anger, my hate, into something steel-hard, steel-sharp. I could feel it burning, and reached for it eagerly, shoving the pain inside to fuel my incandescent anger.”

— Jim Butcher

453. “Thomas has the kind of whiter-than-white boyish grin that makes women’s panties spontaneously evaporate.”

— Jim Butcher

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

— Jim Butcher

455. “Mathematically, maybe,” I said. “But trust isn’t one of those things that lends itself well to math.” “Sure it does,” Bob said. “You trust somebody, they betray you, you get a negative value. You never trust, they can never disappoint you, you break even.”

— Jim Butcher

456. “I put the ick in magic.”

— Jim Butcher

457. “Honey, I liked the Harry Potter movies, too, but that doesn’t mean I ran out and got a Dark Mark tattooed onto my left forearm like you did.”

— Jim Butcher

458. “I’d gone with my usual option. I was running through long tunnels filled with demons and monsters and nightmares, because it was easier than going to the gym.”

— Jim Butcher

459. “I don’t have anything against God. Far from it. But I don’t understand Him. And I don’t trust a lot of the people that go around claiming that they’re working in His best interests. Faeries and vampires and whatnot – those I can fathom. Even demons. Sometimes, even the Fallen. I can understand why they do what they do. But I don’t understand God. I don’t understand how he could see the way people treat one another, and not chalk up the whole human race as a bad idea.”

— Jim Butcher

460. “I’ve always admired your ability to make jokes when faced with adversity.”

— Jim Butcher

461. “No one was standing in the shadows smoking a cigarette or looking about with a shifty-eyed gaze. I couldn’t see anyone quickly hiding a bloody knife behind his back or twirling a moustache, either. That ruled out the Dudley Do-Right approach to finding the killer.”

— Jim Butcher

462. “Your face looks like a sack of purple potatoes.”

— Jim Butcher

463. “He had hard, steady eyes, and all the comforting, reassuring charm of a dental drill. – Harry Dresden describing Morgan.”

— Jim Butcher

464. “Let’s get something clear up front. I’m not Harry Dresden. Harry’s a wizard. A genuine, honest-to-goodness wizard. He’s Gandalf on crack and an IV of Red Bull, with a big leather coat and a .44 revolver in his pocket. He’ll spit in the eye of gods and demons alike if he thinks it needs to be done, and to hell with the consequences – and yet somehow my little brother manages to remain a decent human being. I’ll be damned if I know how. But then, I’ll be damned regardless. My name is Thomas Raith, and I’m a monster.”

— Jim Butcher

465. “You’ve got it backward, Harry,” he said. “You are a soul. You have a body.”

— Jim Butcher

466. “Faith in what?” “That things will unfold as they are meant to,” Forthill said. “That even in the face of an immediate ugliness, the greater picture will resolve into something all the more beautiful.”

— Jim Butcher

467. “It was worse than murder. It was twisted, wretched perversion, as though someone had bludgeoned another person to death with a Botticelli, turned something of beauty to an act of utter destruction.”

— Jim Butcher

468. “I felt my face stretch in a victorious smile. The potion had worked. I was inside. I had to suppress an urge to break into a soft shoe routine. Sometimes being able to use magic was so cool.”

— Jim Butcher

469. “It rained toads the day the White Council came to town.”

— Jim Butcher

470. “It’s one hour. Just one little hour. What could happen in one hour?” And that’s how I knew that Mort was telling the whole truth when he said he wasn’t a hero. Heroes know better than to hand the universe lines like that.”

— Jim Butcher

471. “And you both hurt each other terribly, because you’re family. Because what you say and do matters so much more than anyone else.” She leaned down and put her cheek against my forehead. “Listen to me. I know it hurts right now. But the reason it hurts so much is because you care about each other so much. And that pain will eventually fade. But you’ll both still care.”

— Jim Butcher

472. “Laughter is good for you. Nine out of ten stand-up comedians recommend laughter in the face of intense stupidity.”

— Jim Butcher

473. “Dawn is significant, magically speaking. It is a time of new beginnings.”

— Jim Butcher

474. “He sees the color blue,” the etherealist said. “But his color blue. Not yours.”

— Jim Butcher

475. “I’ve had worse,” Michael said, his voice strained. He shifted his weight, testing the leg, and made a hissing sound – but it supported his weight. “Only a flesh wound.” “Yeah,” I said. “’Tis but a scratch. Come on, ya pansy.” He blinked and looked at me. “Pansy?” “Oh,” I said. “You weren’t quoting the movie. Sorry.” “Movie?” “Holy Grail?” “Nicodemus still has it.” I sighed. “Never mind.”

— Jim Butcher

476. “The hardest lesson a wizard has to learn is that even with so much power, there are some things you can’t control. No matter how much you want to.”

— Jim Butcher

477. “If you want to live, if you want your friends and family to live, I expect you to do more than survive it,” Mab said, sweeping out. “I expect you to skin them alive.”

— Jim Butcher

478. “Come with me if you want to live.”

— Jim Butcher

479. “I work in grand halls and bedchambers with wine and perfume. Not in dark alleyways with cloaks and knives. I don’t like knives. I don’t even own a knife. And my cloaks are far too expensive to risk bloodying.”

— Jim Butcher

480. “If Gabriel is an ambassador, if Michael is a general, if Rafael is a healer and spiritual champion, then Uriel is a spymaster – Heaven’s spook.”

— Jim Butcher

481. “Now that I’ve got this to keep me safe off the island,” I said very quietly, “what’s to stop me from having Alfred drop you into a cell right this second, and solving my problems myself?” “I am,” Mab said. She gave me a very small, very chill smile, and held up her finger. There was a tiny droplet of my blood upon it, scarlet against her pale skin.”

— Jim Butcher

482. “You learn very quickly not to make mistakes given the correct incentive to avoid them.”

— Jim Butcher

483. “I’ve had a tense couple of days. And I’ve got to tell you, burning someone’s face off sounds like a great way to relax.”

— Jim Butcher

484. “Sometimes you don’t know the most important things,” Tavi said. “You believe them.”

— Jim Butcher

485. “I snagged a golden paper crown from one of the bags, and idly joined it into a circle and put it on my head. Susan blinked at me and let out a brief laugh. ‘I am’ I intoned with an imperious narrowing of my eyes, ’the burger king.”

— Jim Butcher

486. “They say screwy things, make odd choices which, in retrospect, they feel amazingly foolish for making.”

— Jim Butcher

487. “Life is too short, Harry. And there’s nowhere near enough joy in it. If you find it, grab it. Before it’s gone.”

— Jim Butcher

488. “Many women have earned titles, Your Grace. It doesn’t seem to have been a factor in whether or not they actually received them.”

— Jim Butcher

489. “Duty flows uphill and down.” He.”

— Jim Butcher

490. “Life?” I suggested. She shrugged. “Desire. Loneliness. Joy. Pain.” “Life,” I said.”

— Jim Butcher

491. “Seedy wasn’t a fair description for the place, because seeds imply eventual regrowth and renewal.”

— Jim Butcher

492. “The moon rose in silver splendor into an October sky strewn with pale clouds and brilliant stars. The clouds churned, a white-foam sea, and the moon was a vast, graceful clipper ship, its sails full of spectral light as it ran before the strength of the cold autumn winds.”

— Jim Butcher

493. “You’ve never been a peasant in medieval France, Harry,” Bob said. “Life was hard for those people. Never enough food, shelter, medicine. If you could give yourself a fur coat and the ability to go out and hunt your own meat, you would have jumped at the chance, too.”

— Jim Butcher

494. “You know how to use magic?” I asked. “I prefer calculus.”

— Jim Butcher

495. “I look at things and think about them,′ Folly replied. ‘And use my intuition, of course, and deduction and induction, as well as any historical or theoretical models that seem to apply.”

— Jim Butcher

496. “Me and polite have never been on close terms.”

— Jim Butcher

497. “I don’t believe in faeries!”

— Jim Butcher

498. “Predator is not property,” Grimm said in a calm, level tone. “She is not my possession. She is my home. Her crew are not my employees. They are my family. And if you threaten to take my home and destroy the livelihood of my family again, Commodore, I will be inclined to kill you where you stand.”

— Jim Butcher

499. “Shame, child, is for those who fail to live up to the ideal of what they believe they should be.”

— Jim Butcher

500. “Every potion has eight parts. One part is a base liquid to hold the others and provide a medium for mixing. Five parts are symbolically linked to each of the five senses. One is similarly linked to the mind, and another to the spirit. The basic ingredient to the stimulant potion was coffee, while the base for the scent-masking potion was water. I got them both to boiling.”

— Jim Butcher