Top 500 Jim Butcher Quotes (2025 Update)
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301. “So, ladies, if you ever have some conversation with your boyfriend or husband or brother or male friend, and you are telling him something perfectly obvious, and he comes away from it utterly clueless? I know it’s tempting to think to yourself, “The man can’t possibly be that stupid!” But yes. Yes, he can.”

— Jim Butcher

302. “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.”

— Jim Butcher

303. “You know how confusing the whole good-evil concept is for me.”

— Jim Butcher

304. “There are people who love you, Faith. Or who one day will. Even if you can’t see them beside you, right here, right now, they’re out there. But if you let the dark get into your eyes, you might never find them. So it’s best to keep a little light with you, along the way.”

— Jim Butcher

305. “The distinction between good and evil is meaningless if one does not have the freedom to choose between them.”

— Jim Butcher

306. “The vampire’s true appearance was grotesque – but it wasn’t as bad as some of the things I had seen in my day. Some demons were a lot worse, and some of the Elder Things could rip your mind apart just by letting you look at them.”

— Jim Butcher

307. “Octokongs,” I pronounced grimly. “Why did it have to be octokongs?”

— Jim Butcher

308. “Investigate the faeries. Great. That was absolutely guaranteed to get complicated before I got any useful answers. If there was one thing faeries hated doing, it was giving you a straight answer, about anything. Getting plain speech out out of one is like pulling out teeth. Your own teeth. Through your nose.”

— Jim Butcher

309. “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?”

— Jim Butcher

310. “They were donuts of darkness.”

— Jim Butcher

311. “I have a monster under my bed, and it’s Mouse.”

— Jim Butcher

312. “And may the crows feast on the unjust.”

— Jim Butcher

313. “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...”

— Jim Butcher

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

— Jim Butcher

315. “See? This is why I’m not religious. I couldn’t possibly keep my mouth shut long enough to get along with everyone else.”

— Jim Butcher

316. “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.”

— Jim Butcher

317. “All right, you primitive screwheads. Listen up. I’m Harry Dresden. I’m the new Winter Knight.”

— Jim Butcher

318. “You don’t explain to the janitorial staff how your company is a part of a sinister organization with goals of global infiltration and control. You just tell them to clean the floor.”

— Jim Butcher

319. “I’d hate to find out that the universe really wasn’t conspiring against me. It would jerk the rug out from under my persecution complex.”

— Jim Butcher

320. “A human of significantly less clumsiness than most came aboard, a small male, and despite its diminutive stature, it moved with a warrior’s confidence and wore a very large and fine hat. Such hats often signified humans who considered themselves important, which was adorable for the first few moments and trying ever after.”

— Jim Butcher

321. “Uh,” I said, feeling somewhat off balance. “What do I think of gay guys?” “Yes.” “Boink and let boink, more or less.”

— Jim Butcher

322. “Let’s sum up: an unknown number of enemies with unknown capabilities, supported by a gang of madmen, packs of attack animals, and superhumanly intelligent pocket change.”

— Jim Butcher

323. “Monsters are born of pain and grief and loss and anger. Your heart is full of them.”

— Jim Butcher

324. “A stuffed animal, man!” I roared at him. “Don’t mess with a wizard when he’s wizarding!”

— Jim Butcher

325. “Make things right?” I asked. “Where did you learn that one?” “From Mr. Carpenter,” she said. “He says making things right is the first and last thing you should do every day. And that it’s what you always try to do.”

— Jim Butcher

326. “The past was gone. Nothing could change what had already been. Looking back at it, letting its wounds fester, indulging in regret was just a different, slower way to die. The living moved forward.”

— Jim Butcher

327. “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.”

— Jim Butcher

328. “His voice was like the rest of him – about as exciting as a W-2.”

— Jim Butcher

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

— Jim Butcher

330. “Murphy nodded, frowning at the road ahead of her. “The reason treachery is so reveiled,” she said in a careful tone of voice, “is because it usually comes from someone you didn’t think could possibly do such a thing.”

— Jim Butcher

331. “It’s dark, close, cold, and intensely creepy down there. The fact that it was inhabited by things that had no love for mankind and potential radioactivity to boot didn’t do much to boost its tourism industry.”

— Jim Butcher

332. “It’s not everyone who can teach you something about faith without saying a word to do it.”

— Jim Butcher

333. “People who ask questions and think about their faith are the last ones to embrace dogma – and the last to abandon their path once they’ve set out on it. I felt fairly sure that the Almighty, whatever name tag He had on at the moment, could handle a few questions from people sincerely looking for answers. Hell, He might even like it.”

— Jim Butcher

334. “Marcone’s scum, but he’s his own scum” -Harry Dresden.”

— Jim Butcher

335. “Santa is a much bigger and more powerful faery than Toot, and I don’t know his true name anyway. You’d never see me trying to nab Saint Nick in a magic circle even if I did. I don’t think anyone has stones that big.”

— Jim Butcher

336. “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 of my life must be really low-budget.”

— Jim Butcher

337. “I may have had good reasons. I may have had the best of intentions. But intentions aren’t enough, no matter how good they are. Intentions can lead you to a place where you’re able to make a choice. It’s the choice that counts.”

— Jim Butcher

338. “They get caught up in right and wrong. Or right and left. But none of that stuff matters if people aren’t free.” Titania.”

— Jim Butcher

339. “Children run everywhere for a reason – it’s fun. Grown-ups can forget that sometimes.”

— Jim Butcher

340. “One more tip, kids. If you had any real talent, the air would practically have been on fire when you got ready to throw down. But you losers don’t have enough magic between you to turn cereal into breakfast.”

— Jim Butcher

341. “The cold rain came down in buckets. I was shaking, shivering, and naked, and more soap was getting into my eyes. But hey. At least I was clean.”

— Jim Butcher

342. “I love being a wizard. Every day is like Disneyland.”

— Jim Butcher

343. “Magic came from life itself, from the interaction of nature and the elements, from the energy of all living beings, and especially of people.”

— Jim Butcher

344. “I could taste the blood in my mouth, from where I had bitten into my tongue, and I either had to spit or swallow. I swallowed. No comments, please.”

— Jim Butcher

345. “Pain is there to tell us when we’ve done something badly – it’s a teacher, a guide, one that is always there to both warn us of our limitations and challenge us to overcome them.”

— Jim Butcher

346. “My magic. That was at the heart of me. It was a manifestation of what I believed, what I lived. It came from my desire to see to it that someone stood between the darkness and the people it would devour.”

— Jim Butcher

347. “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.”

— Jim Butcher

348. “See, that’s the tragedy of the human condition. No one wants to be corrupted by power when they set out to get it. They have good, even noble reasons for doing whatever it is they do. They don’t want to misuse it, they don’t want to abuse it, and they don’t want to become vicious monsters. Good people, decent people, set out to take the high road, to pick up power without letting it.”

— Jim Butcher

349. “Ohhhh,” Molly said wisely. “Those are fun-time handcuffs, not bad-time handcuffs. I gotcha.”

— Jim Butcher

350. “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.”

— Jim Butcher