But Death was cunning.

Poverty entails fear and stress and sometimes depression. It means a thousand petty humiliations and hardships.

And all along the corridor the statues and suits of armor jumped down from their plinths, and from the echoing crashes from the floors above and below, Harry knew that their fellows throughout the castle had done the same.

Finding out what you’re good at, and doing it to the best of your ability, is the route to self-respect.

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.

You are the true master of death, because the true master does not seek to run away from Death. He accepts that be must die, and understands that there are far, far worse things in the living world than dying.

Many prefer not to exercise their imaginations at all. They choose to remain comfortably within the bounds of their own experience, never troubling to wonder how it would feel to have been born other than they are. They can refuse to hear screams or to peer inside cages; they can close their minds and hearts to any suffering that does not touch them personally; they can refuse to know. I might be tempted to envy people who can live that way, except that I do not think they have any fewer nightmares than I do. The wilfully unimaginative see more monsters. They are often more afraid.