Deliberately causing mayhem in Snape's Potions class was about as safe as poking a sleeping dragon in the eye.

Harry, guess what?" said Tonks from her perch on top of the washing machine, and she wiggled her left hand at him; a ring glittered there.

I hope that even if you remember not a single word of mine, you remember those of Seneca, another of those old Romans I met when I fled down the Classics corridor, in retreat from career ladders, in search of ancient wisdom: As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.

The Potter books in general are a prolonged argument for tolerance, a prolonged plea for an end to bigotry. And I think it's one of the reasons that some people don't like the books, but I think that's it's a very healthy message to pass on to younger people that you should question authority and you should not assume that the establishment or the press tells you all of the truth.

The best of us must sometimes eat our words.

Gilderoy Lockhart is also a lot like someone I once knew, but I don't think I'd better elaborate!

I think that I've had a very strange life.