Knowing that you are going to die is, I suspect, the beginning of wisdom.

I imagine that fish have no word for water.

Most of the great triumphs and tragedies of history are caused not by people being fundamentally good or fundamentally evil, but by people being fundamentally people.

Who shall I shoot? You choose. Now, listen very carefully: where's your coffee? You've got coffee, haven't you? C'mon, everyone's got coffee! Spill the beans!

... when your name is really and truly Percy Blakeney, pronounced 'Black-knee', and you still have bad acne in your twenties, you accept Pimple as a nickname and are grateful that it wasn't anything worse.

Once upon a time the plural of 'wizard' was 'war'.

But in his experience it was only a matter of time before the normal balance of the universe restored itself and started doing the usual terrible things to him.