I make mistakes like the next man. In fact, being--forgive me--rather cleverer than most men, my mistakes tend to be correspondingly huger.

You've got to appreciate what the worst is. You don't want to find yourself in a situation where you're facing it.

He never seemed to grasp the immense mutability of human nature, nor to appreciate that behind every nondescript face lay a wild and unique hinterland like his own.

There are much more terrible things than physical injury.

Neville kicked aside the broken fragments of his own wand as they walked slowly toward the door. "My gran's going do kill be," said Neville thickly, blood spattering from his nose as he spoke, "dat was by dad's old wand.

It was important, Dumbledore said, to fight, and fight again, and keep fighting, for only then could evil be kept at bay, though never quite eradicated. . . .

Neither can live while the other survives, and one of us is about to leave for good.