Top 40 Jim C. Hines Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Bullying is not okay. Period.”

— Jim C. Hines

Featured in: Be Kind Quotes, Encouraging Quotes for Students, Common Sense Quotes, School Quotes, Respect To Be Respected Quotes

2. “I read more books for research purposes, whether its a fictionalized biography of Johannes Gutenberg or a stack of urban fantasies.”

— Jim C. Hines

3. “Trust is a choice. Actually, trust is more of a desperate, hopeful guess based on limited information.”

— Jim C. Hines

4. “A zombie amusement park sounds like fun, but the health code violations alone are enough to turn your stomach.”

— Jim C. Hines

5. “An editor named Kerrie Hughes wanted me to write a short story that brought my fire-spider Smudge from my goblin books into the present-day world. I came up with libriomancy as a way to make that happen.”

— Jim C. Hines

6. “Freedom of religion does not give you the right to physically or verbally assault people.”

— Jim C. Hines

7. “Every libromancer had a first book. Etched more sharply into my memory than my first kiss, this book had been my magical awakening.”

— Jim C. Hines

8. “Those forced to make impossible choices are rarely loved. If it’s approval and reputation you care about, then you have no place here.”

— Jim C. Hines

9. “There are too many books in the world to waste time slogging through the ones you hate.”

— Jim C. Hines

10. “A hundred feet underground, in a fake field beneath a fake sky, with an ogre slaughtered like no more than a rat to a cat, and he sends us to search for the unusual.”

— Jim C. Hines

11. “I hadn’t thought to bring anything to wash down the blood. I wondered if they had a font for holy water, and whether anyone would object to me using it as a drinking fountain. Though given that I was trying to absorb vampire magic, using holy water as a chaser probably wasn’t a great idea.”

— Jim C. Hines

12. “Any factual errors that remain are entirely the fault of Bob, who snuck into the offices at DAW to try to sabotage my book. I hate that guy.”

— Jim C. Hines

13. “If we ruled the world, I guarantee you they never would have cancelled Firefly.”

— Jim C. Hines

14. “None of us can foresee the consequences of such a step.” Ponce de Leon ran his fingers through his hair, smoothing it back into place. “Though after centuries of watching mankind, I sometimes suspect intelligence is overrated.”

— Jim C. Hines

15. “Like any child raised on tales of magical worlds beyond paintings and mirrors and wardrobes, I had yearned to enter Middle Earth, to reach through.”

— Jim C. Hines

16. “He had also jinxed my telescope so that every time I looked at Mars, Marvin the Martian popped up and threatened to destroy the Earth with an explosive space-modulator.”

— Jim C. Hines

17. “Ive tried to write deep and serious. I spent years working to write a story that would make my writing group cry.”

— Jim C. Hines

18. “Judge not, lest ye be punched in the face for being a self-righteous prick.”

— Jim C. Hines

19. “Do you know why happily ever after is a lie?” Snow asked. “Because life is change.”

— Jim C. Hines

20. “New rule: every fantasy author who doesn’t treat horses like tireless hairy motorcycles automatically gets a Hugo.”

— Jim C. Hines

21. “I have a day job, which means my family isnt dependent on the writing income. So if I have an idea I like, I write it.”

— Jim C. Hines

22. “Instead of Debbie Does Dallas, we get Gandalf Guts Goblins.”

— Jim C. Hines

23. “The more we narrow the definition of beauty, the more beauty we shut out of our lives.”

— Jim C. Hines

24. “I had said before that all stories were magic. It had never occurred to me that all magic was stories.”

— Jim C. Hines

25. “Look at the shiny magic thing trying to kill us, isn’t it awesome?”

— Jim C. Hines

26. “Integration my undead ass. Did they teach you about the Great American Melting Pot in grade school?” she asked. “Some of us don’t like the idea of being melted down and blended into stew for the rest of you to devour.”

— Jim C. Hines

27. “Story was magic. Magic was story. Memory was also story, disparate events linked together in our mind to create a narrative.”

— Jim C. Hines

28. “Some people would say it’s a bad idea to bring a fire-spider into a public library. Those people would probably be right, but it was better than leaving him alone in the house for nine hours straight. The one time I tried, Smudge had expressed his displeasure by burning through the screen that covered his tank, burrowing into my laundry basket, and setting two weeks’ worth of clothes ablaze.”

— Jim C. Hines

29. “Find the stories you love, and don’t ever let anyone tell you you’re wrong for loving them. If.”

— Jim C. Hines

30. “Jig had never worried about pursuing his destiny. Generally, destiny pursued him. Then it knocked him down and kicked him a few times for good measure.”

— Jim C. Hines

31. “You don’t do what’s right because you know it will work out. You do it because you know it’s right.”

— Jim C. Hines

32. “Blind panic might not work all the time, but at least it saved you the stress of planning.”

— Jim C. Hines

33. “Answers are easy. What’s the question?”

— Jim C. Hines

34. “There was magic, and there was magic. Thanks to Gutenberg, I could no longer pull wands, potions, and light sabers out of books, but when it came to research, give me a well-stocked library and I was a goddamned Merlin.”

— Jim C. Hines

35. “We can know what was, but not what might have been.”

— Jim C. Hines

36. “Librarians: Kicking Ignorance in the Balls for Over 4000 Years.”

— Jim C. Hines

37. “As was often the case, Magic just chuckled and kicked physics in the balls, leaving it groaning and wondering what just happened.”

— Jim C. Hines

38. “Can we all pause a moment to appreciate the artistry of that sentence? “Sitting casually on the floor, a guard sat... ” That’s freaking art right there! Someone nominate this thing for the Hugo Award already!”

— Jim C. Hines

39. “I’ve said for years – ever since I figured out how to write Goblin Hero – that it’s important to give yourself permission to write crap. Perfection is the destroyer of art. It’s paralyzing. Art, whether it’s writing or painting or anything else, requires risk. And risk means you’re going to make mistakes. Sometimes you’re going to fail.”

— Jim C. Hines

40. “Questing is hard. Fortunately, Thomas is here to spoon-feed them answers. We’re one step away from him giving them an instruction sheet by Ikea, with cartoonish diagrams and a little goddess-slaying allen wrench.”

— Jim C. Hines