“Hospital waits are bad ones. The fact that they happen to pretty much all of us, sooner or later, doesn’t make them any less hideous. They’re always just a little too cold. It always smells just a little bit too sharp and clean. It’s always quiet, so quiet that you can hear the fluorescent lights - another constant, those lights - humming. Pretty much everyone else there is in the same bad predicament you are, and there isn’t much in the way of cheerful conversation. And there’s always a clock in sight. The clock has superpowers. It always seems to move too slowly. Look up at it and it will tell you the time. Look up an hour and a half later, and it will tell you two minutes have gone by. Yet it somehow simultaneously has the ability to remind you of how short life is, to make you acutely aware of how little time someone you love might have remaining to them.”

“Paranoia is a survival trait when you run in my circles. It gives you something to do in your spare time, coming up with solutions to ridiculous problems that aren't ever going to happen. Except when one of them does, at which point you feel way too vindicated.- Harry Dresden, Changes, Jim Butcher”

“My laboratory,' I said, experimentally, drawing out each syllable. 'Why is it that saying it like that always makes me want to follow it with 'mwoo-hah-hah-hahhhhh'? ''You were overexposed to Hammer Films as a child?' - Harry Dresden & Bob the Skull, Changes, Jim Butcher”

“You need to know where to go,' Sanya said.'Yes,''And you are going to consult four large pizzas for guidance.''Yes,' I said....'There is, I think, humour here which does not translate well from English into sanity.''That's pretty rich coming from the agnostic Knight of the Cross with a holy Sword who takes his orders from an archangel.' I said.- Harry Dresden & Sanya, Changes, Jim Butcher”

“...The next time I opened my eyes, I was in the morgue.This, all by itself, is enough to really ruin your day.I was lying on the examining table, and Butters, complete with his surgical gown and his tray of autopsy instruments, stood over me.'I'm not dead!' I sputtered. 'I'm not dead!'- Harry Dresden, Death Masks, Jim Butcher”

“... They paid some madman who thought he was a decorator a lot of money to make the place look hip and unique. May be it's my lack of fashion sense talking, but I thought they should have held out for one of those gorillas who has learned to paint. The results would have been of similar quality, and they could have paid in fresh produce.- Harry Dresden, Small Favor, Jim Butcher”

“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”

“Right,' Thomas said. 'Where are we headed?''To where they treat me like royalty,' I said.'We're going to Burger King?'I rubbed the heel of my hand against my forehead and spelled fratricide in a subvocal mutter, but I had to spell out temporary insanity and justifiable homicide, too, before I calmed down enough to speak politely. 'Just take a left and drive. Please.''Well,' Thomas said, grinning, 'since you said 'please'- Thomas Raith & Harry Dresden, Small Favor, Jim Butcher”

“Molly was arrested. Possession.” I blinked at him. “She was possessed?”

“Like “love,” “hope” is one of those ridiculously disproportional words that by all rights should be a lot longer.”

“Think of every fairy-tale villainess you've ever heard of. Think of the wicked witches, the evil queens, the mad enchantresses. Think of the alluring sirens, the hungry ogresses, the savage she-beasts. Think of them and remember that somewhere, sometime, they've all been real.”