Harry had the impression that even the barman was listening in. He was wiping the same glass with the filthy rag; it was becoming steadily dirtier.

Hermione drew herself to her full height; her eyes were narrowed and her hair seemed to crackle with electricity. "No," she said, her voice quivering with anger, "but I will write to your mother.

One of the many things I learned at the end of that Classics corridor down which I ventured at the age of 18, in search of something I could not then define, was this, written by the Greek author Plutarch: What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality. That is an astonishing statement and yet proven a thousand times every day of our lives. It expresses, in part, our inescapable connection with the outside world, the fact that we touch other people’s lives simply by existing.

I'm a what?" gasped Harry. "A wizard, o' course," said Hagrid, sitting back down on the sofa, which groaned and sank even lower, "an' a thumpin' good'un I'd say, once yeh've been trained up a bit. With a mum an' dad like yours, what else would yeh be?

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.

Nobody's ever asked me to a party before, as a friend. Is that why you dyed your eyebrow, for the party? Should I do mine too?

There is plenty of ambitious competition and hypocrisy in the middle class, which makes it a rather fertile environment for a writer.