Did you see me disarm Hermione, Harry?" "Only once" said Hermione stung. "I got you loads more then you got me—" "I did not only get you once, I got you at least three times—" "Well if you're counting the one where you tripped over your own feet and knocked the wand out of my hand—

I am a wizard, not a baboon brandishing a stick.

He had fought back with every weapon in his arsenal, being alternatively obtuse, evasive and pedantic, for it was wonderful how you could obscure an emotional issue by appearing to seek precision.

How awful it was, thought Tessa, remembering Fats the toddler, the way tiny ghosts of your living children haunted your heart; they could never know, and would hate it if they did, how their growing was a constant bereavement.

It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might has well not have lived at all, in which case you have failed by default.

Your aunt and uncle will be proud, though, won't they?" said Hermione as they got off the train and joined the crowd thronging toward the enchanted barrier. "When they hear what you did this year?" "Proud?" said Harry. "Are you crazy? All those times I could've died, and I didn't manage it? They'll be furious.

Writing for me is a kind of compulsion, so I don't think anyone could have made me do it, or prevented me from doing it.