“The essence of Druidry is training the mind to both handle contradictory input and construct contradictory out”
— Kevin Hearne
“PR guys get paid to make people believe that a pile of shit is an investment in soil fertility. Professional liars.”“Ah!” Manannan’s expression lit with comprehension. “They are politicians?”
— Kevin Hearne
“For me, the times I always regret are missed opportunities to say farewell to good people, to wish them long life and say to them in all sincerity, “You build and do not destroy; you sow goodwill and reap it; smiles bloom in the wake of your passing, and I will keep your kindness in trust and share it as occasion arises, so that your life will be a quenching draught of calm in a land of drought and stress.” Too often I never get to say that when it should be said. Instead, I leave them with the equivalent of a “Later, dude!” only to discover there would be no later for us.”
— Kevin Hearne
“She’d made life poignant for the Irish. The terror she inspired gave peace its serenity; the pain she caused gave health its lustre; her failure to love made me grateful for my ability to do so, and I realized, far too late, that though I never did or could have loved her as she might have wished, I should have loved her more.”
— Kevin Hearne
“The answer to enemies who heal annoyingly fast is always, always decapitation. That is why swords will never go out of style.”
— Kevin Hearne
“And there were carved hearts in the trunks of trees with the initials of couples who felt there was no more romantic thing they could do to celebrate their love than scar the local plant life”
— Kevin Hearne
“May harmony find you” Atticus”
— Kevin Hearne
“Morrigan “What are guilt ferrets:”Atticus “They’re bastards. They cling to your neck and tickle and bite and generally make you miserable, which is a pretty good trick for a metaphor.” They were also impervious to logic, perhaps their most diabolical power.”
— Kevin Hearne
“Hamlet promised himself he’d throw down afterward, but I think perhaps when he said, “From this time forth, my thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!” the limits of blank verse weakened his resolve somehow. If he’d been free to follow the dictates of his conscience rather than the pen of Shakespeare, perhaps he would have abandoned verse altogether, like me, and contented himself with this instead: “Bring it, muthafuckas. Bring it.”
— Kevin Hearne
“This bastard is so guilty he already has his lawyer here.”
— Kevin Hearne
“When people ask how old I am, I just tell them twenty-one, and if they assume I mean years instead of decades or centuries, then that can’t be my fault, can it?”
— Kevin Hearne
“When in doubt, know your way out, I always say.””I thought you always said, ‘When in doubt, blame the dark elves.'””Well, yeah, that too.””I don’t think those are very practical solutions to doubt,” Oberon said. “They don’t leave you feeling satisfied. ‘When in doubt, eat your neighbor’s lunch’ is better, because then you would at least be full.”
— Kevin Hearne
“Jesus “…It sounds like these guys would be filed under Assholes Who do Evil Shit in My Name.”
— Kevin Hearne
“Gods can screw anything and anybody. For reference, see history.Atticus O’Sullivan”
— Kevin Hearne
“come humans, fulfill your evolutionary purpose adn build your hound a fire.” Oberon”
— Kevin Hearne
“But there was no going back to that idyllic time when only one god wanted to kill me.”
— Kevin Hearne
“It’s not like the Middle Ages, when you had the Church and the aristocracy keeping everything nice and stagnant.”
— Kevin Hearne
“Revenge and rational thought never sleep together.”
— Kevin Hearne
“When you’re driving, you don’t focus on everything at once, but you have peripheral awareness of it, right? You focus on what you need to at any given moment, whether it’s the car in front of you, the jackass in the lifted truck passing you, or the sirens behind you, whatever. Everything exists, everything is there, but you don’t have to see it all at once. Does that help? You don’t have to see all the bindings you’re seeing right now. Just focus on the outlines of the physical stuff you saw before.”
— Kevin Hearne
“Druids were supposed to be forces of preservation, not destruction, and I could not dance around the fact that my stupid pride had turned me into a misbegotten cockwaffle.”
— Kevin Hearne
“I forgot how good it feels to be rooted. And to be rooted is not the same thing at all as being tied down. To be rooted is to say, here I am nourished and here will I grow, for I have found a place where every sunrise shows me how to be more than what I was yesterday, and I need not wander to feel the wonder of my blessing. And when you are rooted, defending that space ceases to be an obligation or a duty and becomes more of a desire.”
— Kevin Hearne
“The point is, Mrs. MacDonagh, that the universe is exactly the size that your soul can encompass. Some people live in extremely small worlds, and some live in a world of infinite possibility.”
— Kevin Hearne
“When in doubt, know your way out, I always say.””I thought you always said, ‘When in doubt, blame the dark elves.'””Well, yeah, that”
— Kevin Hearne
“Not everyone can be bribed with meat, Oberon.” “They Can’t? Oh! you mean they’re vegetarian.””No, they eat meat. It just doesn’t sway their decision making process.” “Well that… that’s just wrong, Atticus!Are they Monsters? It’s like they have no moral center!”
— Kevin Hearne
“No. See, when you throw up you’re vomiting, but when you throw down you’re starting a fight, as in throwing down the gauntlet.””Ohhhh,” he said. “I thought you were speaking literally.””I do beg your pardon. Let’s literally throw up, but figuratively throw down.”
— Kevin Hearne
“You don’t even know if she really likes you, Oberon said as we exited and I unlocked my bike. She could be doing her customer service routine and stringing you along in hopes of a big tip the next time you come in. With dogs you just go up and smell their asses and you know where you stand, it’s so much easier. Why can’t humans do that?”
— Kevin Hearne
“I jumped up and down and swore violently in seventeen languages.”
— Kevin Hearne
“No matter how old I get, I keep running into people who are smarter, nobler, and kinder. I really ought to start listening to them and telling my pride to shut up. I had gods tell me not to go to Asgard. I had witches tell me not to go to Flagstaff. You told me this plan wouldn’t work. But I barreled ahead anyway for my own reasons. I still have plenty of growing to do.”
— Kevin Hearne
“Oberon’s been kidnapped along with one of the werewolves, and that’s why we’re all so upset. We’ll talk more tomorrow, and I promise to answer all your questions if I survive the night,” I said. The widow’s eyebrows raised. “Ye’ve got all these nasty pooches to run around with and ye still might die?” “I’m going to go fight with a god, some demons, and a coven of witches who all want to kill me,” I said, “so it’s a distinct possibility.” “Are y’goin’ t’kill ’em back?” “I’d certainly like to.” “Attaboy,” the widow chuckled. “Off y’go, then. Kill every last one o’ the bastards and call me in the mornin’.”
— Kevin Hearne
“Saying good-bye properly afforded me a measure of peace. It was a binding of a different sort, absent of the earth’s power, but still hard proof that there is magic yet in the world.”
— Kevin Hearne