Jim Butcher

I ask people impertinent questions. Hopefully turning up pertinent answers.

Nay, but prithee, with sprinkles 'pon it instead," I said solemnly, "and frosting of white.

Isana laughed. "And you, lady? Are you a woman of conscience or of ambition?"The lady smiled. "That's a question rarely asked here at court.""And why is that?""Because a woman of conscience would tell you that she is a person of conscience. A woman of ambition would tell you that she is a person of conscience__nly much more convincingly.

Man. Being mostly dead is hard on a guy.

Yes, I was standing on nothing but congealed starlight. Yes, I was walking up through a savage storm, the wind threatening to tear me off and throw me into the freezing waters of Lake Michigan far below. Yes, I was using a legendary and enchanted means of travel to transcend the border between one dimension and the next, and on my way to an epic struggle between ancient and elemental forces.But all i could think to say, between panting breaths, was, "Yeah. Sure. They couldn't possibly have made this an escalator.

That's Doctor Smart-ass. I didn't spend eight years in insult college to be called Mister.

With a sense of humor like that, you could make a living as a garbage man anywhere in the country.

You don't have to make fun of it.""Actually I do," I said. "I make fun of almost everything.

Maybe,_ he said in a slow, rural drawl, __ou could explain to me why I found you in the middle of an orgy._ __ell,_ I said, __f you__e going to be in an orgy, the middle is the best spot, isn__ it.

Just remember that you're on my list, Marcone. Soon as I get done with all the other evils in this town, you won't be the lesser of them anymore."Marcone stared at me with half-lidded eyes and said, "Eek.

There should be a rule against your own inner monologue throwing around that much sarcasm.

There are a lot of things I can't control. I don't know what's going to happen in the next few days.I don't want what I am going to face, what kind of choices I am going to have to make. I can't predict it. I can't control it. It's too big.' I nodded at my shovel. 'But that, I can predict. I know that if I pick up that shovel and clear the snow from the walkways, it's going to make my neighbors safer and happier.' I glanced at him and shrugged. 'It's worthwhile to me.

It must be tempered with discipline. Ferocity is useless unless employed in the proper place . . .

How do i do this?

It bothered me that he was right. Without Sir Stuart's intervention, I'd have been dead again already.That's right--you heard me: dead again already.I mean, come on. How screwed up is your life (after- or otherwise) when you find yourself needing phrases like that?

Oh, I forgot to mention it: My brother is the kind of man whom women stalk. In cooperative packs.

Why?_ I asked him tiredly. __hat would it have changed? What could you possibly have said that would have made a difference?___hat I was your brother, Harry,_ he said. __hat I loved you. That I knew a few things about denying the dark parts of your nature. And that we would get through it._ He put his elblows on his knees and rested his forehead on his hands. __hat we__ figure it out. That you weren__ alone._ Stab.Twist.He was right. It was just that simple.

They don't make morgues with windows. In fact, if the geography allows for it, they hardly ever make morgues above the ground. I guess it's partly because it must be eisier to refrigerate a bunch of coffin-sized chambers in a room insulated by the earth. But that can't be all there is to it. Under the earth means a lot more than relative altitude. It's where dead things fit. Graves are under the earth. So are Hell, Gehenna, Hades, and a dozen other reported afterlives.Maybe it says somthing about people. Maybe for us, under the earth is a subtle and profound statement. Maybe ground level provides us with a kind of symbolic boundary marker, an artificial construct that helps us remember that we are alive. Mabye it helps us push death's shadow back from our lives.I live in a basement apartment and like it. What does that say about me?Probably that I overanalyze things.