The wand chooses the wizard.

Every second he breathed, the smell of the grass, the cool air on his face, was so precious: To think that people had years and years, time to waste, so much time it dragged, and he was clinging to each second.

So that's little Scorpious. Make sure you beat him in every test, Rosie. Thank god you've inherited your mother's brains.

Your qualifications, your CV, are not your life, though you will meet many people of my age and older who confuse the two. Life is difficult, and complicated, and beyond anyone's control, and the humility to know that will enable you to survive its vicissitudes.

That's what they should teach us here. How girls' brains work... It would be more useful than divination, anyway.

He put his foot on one pedal, scooted a few yards and swung his other leg over the saddle. He soared left into the vertiginously sloping hillside road and sped, without touching his brakes ... The hedgerows and sky blurred; he imagined himself in a velodrome as the wind whipped his hair clean...

I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even put a stopper on death.