Balance. It was all about balance. That had been one of the first things that she had learned: the centre of the seesaw has neither up nor down, but upness and downness flow through it while it remains unmoved. You had to be the centre of the seesaw so the pain flowed through you, not into you. It was very hard. But she could do it!

Sometimes it is better to light a flamethrower than curse the darkness.

I would not like it thought that I do not buy my own paperclips, sir. I enjoy owning my own paperclips. It means they are mine.

...'I thought the rule was that all monks were shaved.' 'Oh, Soto says he is bald under the hair,'said Lu Tze. 'He says the hair is a separate creature that just happens to live on him.

... 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.

An ancient proverb summed it up when a wizard is tired of looking for broken glass in his dinner, it ran, he is tired of life.

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