It is curious and we magicians collect curiosities, you know.

It has been remarked (by a lady infinitely cleverer than the present author) how kindly disposed the world in general feels to young people who either die or marry.

It would need someone very remarkable to recover your name, Stephen, someone of rare perspicacity, with extraordinary talents and incomparable nobility of character. Me, in fact.

Ha!' said the tall man drily. 'He was in high luck. Rich old uncles who die are in shockingly short supply.

I have a scholar's love of silence and solitude. To sit and pass hour after hour in idle chatter with a roomful of strangers is to me the worst sort of torment.

Magic, madam, is like wine and, if you are not used to it, it will make you drunk.

He hardly ever spoke of magic, and when he did it was like a history lesson and no one could bear to listen to him.