We all know that the people we love are mortal, we all know we’re mortal, we know it’s going to end; you cannot prepare yourself for it.

Does it hurt?" The childish question had escaped Harry's lips before he could stop it. "Dying? Not at all," said Sirius. "Quicker and easier than falling asleep.

Stone dead," said Howard, as though there were degrees of deadness, and the kind that Barry Fairbrother had contracted was particularly sordid.

... perhaps those who are best suited to power are those who have never sought it.

Harry was left to ponder in silence the depths to which girls would sink to get revenge.

I don't take any responsibility for the lunatic fringes of my own religion.

He had fought back with every weapon in his arsenal, being alternatively obtuse, evasive and pedantic, for it was wonderful how you could obscure an emotional issue by appearing to seek precision.