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.
Wait. You don't understand. I just wanted it to stop. Wanted the hurting to stop." I smoothed a bloodied lock of hair from her eyes and felt very tired as I said, "The only people who never hurt are dead." The light died out of her eyes, her breath slowing. She whispered, barely audible, "I don't understand." I answered, "I don't either." A tear slid from her eye and mixed with the blood. Then she died."
Thomas opened the throttle all the way and passed me, I kid you not, a shiny brass telescope. "Seriously?" I asked him. "Ever since those pirate movies came out, they're everywhere," he said. "I've got a sextant, too." "Any tent you have is a sex tent," I muttered darkly, extending the telescope. Thomas smirked."
Do you really think you can win?' 'Yeah. Hell, Ortega is only the third or fourth most disturbing thing I've tangled with today.' 'But even if you do win, what does it change?' 'Me getting kiilled now. That way, I get to be killed later tonight instead.' - Susan Rodriguez & Harry Dresden, Death Masks, Jim Butcher
I choose my battles, Dresden. Not you." She looked up at me calmly. "Let me put this in terms that will get through your skull: My friend is going to save a child from monsters. I'm going with him. That's what friends do, Harry."
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."
Apocalypse is a frame of mind." [Nicodemus] said then. "A belief. A surrender to inevitability. It is a despair for the future. It is the death of hope."
I stretched out my hand, adrenaline and pain giving me plenty of fuel for the magic, and called, 'Ventas servitas!' Wind leapt out in a sudden spurt, seizing the Unraveling and tearing it from Aurora's fingers, sending it spinning through the air toward me. I caught it, stuck my tongue out at Aurora, yelled, 'Meep, meep!' and ran like hell.
It turns out that Molly wasn't her mother's daughter in that respect. Charity was like the MacGuyver of the kitchen. She could whip up a five-course meal for twelve from an egg, two spaghetti noodles, some household chemicals, and a stick of chewing gum. Molly ... Molly once burned my egg. My boiled egg. I don't know how.
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."
I kept a straight face while my inner Neanderthal spluttered and then went on a mental rampage through a hypothetical produce section, knocking over shelves and spattering fruit everywhere in sheer frustration, screaming, 'JUST TELL ME WHOSE SKULL TO CRACK WITH MY CLUB, DAMMIT!
Do you want your blood to stay where it is sochar-lar?" Tavi lifted both eyebrows at the unfamiliar word, and glanced at Varg. "Monkey," Varg supplied, in Aleran. "And male-child." "He called me monkey boy?" Tavi asked."
He gave me an inscrutable look that said maybe he would and maybe he wouldn't. Mister was a cat, and cats generally considered it the obligation of the universe to provide shelter, sustenance, and amusement as required. I think Mister considered it beneath his dignity to plan for the future.
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.
Maybe," he said in a slow, rural drawl, "you could explain to me why I found you in the middle of an orgy." "Well," I said, "if you're going to be in an orgy, the middle is the best spot, isn't it."
I followed him through the halls of the enormous church until we got to the staff's kitchen. He went to the fridge, opened it, and came out with a bottle of bourbon. He poured some into a coffee cup, drank it down, and poured some more. He offered me the bottle. No, thanks. Aren't you supposed to drink vodka? Aren't you supposed to wear a pointy hat and ride on a flying broomstick? Touche, I said.
So really, it was just as well that Godmother had caught up to me, in spite of my best efforts to avoid her. 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." -Harry"
And it's deadly to us. We can inspire lust, but it's just a shadow. An illusion. Love is a dangerous force." He shook his head. "Love killed the dinosaurs, man." I'm pretty sure a meteor killed the dinosaurs, Thomas." He shrugged. "There's a theory making the rounds now that when the meteor hit it only killed off the big stuff. That there were plenty of smaller reptiles running around, about the same size as all the mammals at the time. T..
Living was a dangerous past-time, and often quite painful--but there was also such joy in living, such beauty, things that one would otherwise never see, never experience, never know. The risk of pain and loss was a part of living.
Fear has a lot of flavors and textures. There's a sharp, silver fear that runs like lightning through your arms and legs, galvanizes you into action, power, motion. There's heavy, leaden fear that comes in ingots, piling up in your belly during the empty hours between midnight and morning, when everything is dark, every problem grows larger, and every wound and illness grows worse. And there is coppery fear, drawn tight as the strings of a ..
We're always disappointed when we find out someone else has human limits, the same as we do. It's stupid for us to feel that way, and we really ought to know better, but that doesn't seem to slow us down.
When people say the word "convention," they are usually referring to large gatherings of the employees of companies and corporations who attend a mass assembly, usually in a big hotel somewhere, for the purpose of pretending to learn stuff when they are in fact enjoying a free trip somewhere, time off work, and the opportunity to flirt with strangers, drink, and otherwise indulge themselves. The first major difference between a business con..
Bigots see something they expect and then they stop thinking about what is in front of them. It's probably how they got to be bigots in the first place.
All power is the same. Magic. Physical strength. Economic strength. Political strength. It all serves a single purpose-it gives its possessor a broader spectrum of choices. It creates alternative courses of action.
You think this is going to work? This peaceful summit thing?" "Sure," I said. After a second, I added, "Probably." "Probably?" "Maybe," I said. "We're down to maybe now?" I shrugged. "We'll see."
If the beginning of wisdom is in realizing that one knows nothing, then the beginning of understanding is in realizing that all things exist in accord with a single truth: Large things are made of smaller things. Drops of ink are shaped into letters, letters form words, words form sentences, and sentences combine to express thought. So it is with the growth of plants that spring from seeds, as well as with walls built from many stones. So ..
You think your power is what shapes the world you walk in. But that is an illusion. Your choices shape your world. You think your power will protect you from the consequences of those choices. But you are wrong. You create your own rewards. There is a Judge. There is Justice in this world. And one day you will receive what you have earned. Choose carefully.