There is a primal reassurance in being touched, in knowing that someone else, someone close to you, wants to be touching you. There is a bone-deep security that goes with the brush of a human hand, a silent, reflex-level affirmation that someone is near, that someone cares.

Got to die of something," Giraldi observed. "Might as well put back a few pints while you wait to see what it is.

Most of the bad guys in the real world don't know that they are bad guys. You don't get a flashing warning sign that you're about to damn yourself. It sneaks up on you when you aren't looking.

Ease off the martyr throttle.

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

It would require a singularly stupid man to go hang around in narrow tunnels and cramped spaces alongside a threat like that. "And I, Harry Dresden, am that man," I stated.

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.