If you make some comment even obliquely alluding to menstruation or menopause and its effect on my judgment," Murphy interrupted, "I will break your arm in eleven places.

I wouldn't burden any decent system of faith by participating in it... I'm not agnostic. Just nonpartisan. Theological Switzerland, that's me.

Whenever you've got a choice, do good, kiddo. It isn't always fun or easy, but in the long run it makes your life better.

Sometimes it isn't easy to be sane, smart, and responsible. Sometimes it sucks. Sucks wang. Camel wang. But that doesn't turn wrong into right or stupid into smart.

A man's magic demonstrates what sort of person he is, what is held most deeply inside of him. There is no truer gauge of a man's character than the way in which he employs his strength, his power. I was not a murderer. I was not like Victor Sells. I was Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden. I was a wizard. Wizards control their power. They don't let it control them. And wizards don't use magic to kill people. They use it to discover, to protect, to mend, to help. Not to destroy.

Discretion is the better part of not getting exsanguinated.

All right. Tell me what I'm looking at." From the improvised Rolling Stones T-shirt bag tied to my sash, Bob the Skull said, in his most caustic voice, "A giant pair of cartoon lips." I muttered a curse and fumbled with the shirt until one of the skull's glowing orange eye sockets was visible. A big goofy magic nerd!" Bob said.