'It only put me in Gryffindor,' said Harry in a defeated voice, 'because I asked not to go in Slytherin...' 'Exactly' said Dumbledore, beaming once more. 'Which makes you very different from Tom Riddle. It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.'

You don’t understand — there are things worth dying for!

Words are, in my not-so-humble opinion, our most inexhaustible source of magic. Capable of both inflicting injury, and remedying it.

I'm dying!" Malfoy yelled, as the class panicked. "I'm dying, look at me! It's killed me!

Every hour that passed added to her grief, because it bore her further away from the living man, and because it was a tiny foretaste of the eternity she would have to spend without him.

Failure means a stripping away of the inessential.

You could be great, you know, it’s all here in your head, and Slytherin will help you on the way to greatness, no doubt about that.