It was as if Snape had started handing out sweets.

Humans have a knack for choosing precisely the things that are worst for them.

There is plenty of ambitious competition and hypocrisy in the middle class, which makes it a rather fertile environment for a writer.

And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.

And tears came before he could stop them, boiling hot then instantly freezing on his face, and what was the point in wiping them off? Or pretending? He let them fall.

The exceptions were two men a little ahead of them, standing just outside the Three Broomsticks. One was very tall and thin; squinting through his rain-washed glasses Harry recognized the barman who worked in the other Hogsmeade pub, the Hog’s Head. As Harry, Ron, and Hermione drew closer, the barman drew his cloak more tightly around his neck and walked away, leaving the shorter man to fumble with something in his arms. They were barely feet from him when Harry realized who the man was. “Mundungus!

Muggles have garden gnomes, too, you know," Harry told Ron as they crossed the lawn. "Yeah, I've seen those things they think are gnomes," said Ron, bent double with his head in a peony bush, "like fat little Santa Clauses with fishing rods.