I am prouder of my years as a single mother than of any other part of my life.

Twitchy little ferret, aren't you, Malfoy?

By all means continue destroying my possessions. I daresay I have too many.

Failure means a stripping away of the inessential.

Everything had shattered. The fact that it was all still there — the walls and the chairs and the children’s pictures on the walls — meant nothing. Every atom of it had been blasted apart and reconstituted in an instant, and its appearance of permanence and solidity was laughable; it would dissolve at a touch, for everything was suddenly tissue-thin and friable.

If you don’t like to read, you haven’t found the right book.

Bless my soul,” whispered the old bartender, “Harry Potter . . . what an honor.