The Forbidden Forest looked as though it had been enchanted, each tree smattered with silver, and Hagrid's cabin looked like an iced cake.

Somewhere out in the darkness, a phoenix was singing in a way Harry had never heard before: a stricken lament of terrible beauty. And Harry felt, as he had felt about phoenix song before, that the music was inside him, not without: It was his own grief turned magically to song.

Books are like mirrors: if a fool looks in, you cannot expect a genius to look out.

When you have seen as much of life as I have, you will not underestimate the power of obsessive love.

The hippogriff took off into the air. . . . He and his rider became smaller and smaller as Harry gazed after them . . . then a cloud drifted across the moon. . . . They were gone.

Ginny came in to visit while you were unconscious", he said, after a long pause, and Harry's imagination zoomed into overdrive, rapidly constructing a scene in which Ginny, weeking over his lifeless form, confessed her feelings of deep attraction to him while Ron gave them his blessing.

Have you any idea how much tyrants fear the people they oppress?