G. Norman Lippert · 549 pages
Rating: (21.7K votes)
“Cedric smiled and sat back again. 'You only think that because you think heroes always win. Trust me on this one, James. A hero isn’t defined by winning. Loads of heroes die in the effort. Most of them never get any recognition. No, a hero is just somebody who does the right thing when it would be far, far easier to do nothing.”
“Enjoy your ignorance while you can.”
“What in the name of Voldy’s pasty-white rear end was that?”
“The scariest people in the world are not always the ones who are bent on evil, James. Sometimes, the scariest person is the one who mistakes their own lies for truth.”
“Know your feelings. Master them or they will master you.”
“Then I have an ivory chair high to sit upon, Almost like my father's chair, which is an ivory throne; There I sit uplift and upright, there I sit alone.”
“The battle is always the same, just with different chapters.”
“Mr. Grey peeked around the corner and surveyed the corridor. It stretched off into dim infinity, dotted with floating globes of silvery light. Mr. Grey had been told that the globes were swampfire, encased in a timeloop charm so they were inextinguishable. He’d never even heard of swampfire, much less a timeloop charm, but then again, Mr. Grey had never been in a place quite like the Hall of Mysteries. He shuddered.”
“a hero is just somebody who does the right thing when it would be far, far easier to do nothing.”
-Cedric Diggory-”
“I’ve heard enough Potter explanations throughout the years to know the general shape of them, anyway.”
“No point making rules against things that are impossible.”
“I hate to say it, but it can’t be much of a dark conspiracy if a trio of first-year shlubs like us have worked it all out.”
“James Potter moved slowly along the narrow aisles of the train, peering as nonchalantly as he could into each compartment. To those inside, he probably looked as if he was searching for someone, some friend or group of confidantes with whom to pass the time during the trip, and this was intentional. The last thing that James wanted anyone to notice was that, despite the bravado he had so recently displayed with his younger brother Albus on the platform, he was nervous. His stomach knotted and churned as if he’d had half a bite of one of Uncles Ron and George’s Puking Pastilles. He opened the folding door at the end of the passenger car and stepped carefully through the passage into the next one. The first compartment was full of girls. They were talking animatedly to one another, already apparently the best of friends despite the fact that, most likely, they had only just met. One of them glanced up and saw him staring. He quickly looked away, pretending to peer out the window behind them, toward the station which still sat bustling with activity. Feeling his cheeks go a little red, he continued down the corridor. If only Rose was a year older she’d be here with him. She was a girl, but she was his cousin and they’d grown up together. It would’ve been nice to have at least one familiar face along with him.”
“Apologizing is great, but ‘sorry’ isn’t a magic word.”
“A hero isn’t defined by winning. Loads of heroes die in the effort. Most of them never get any recognition. No, a hero is just somebody who does the right thing when it would be far, far easier to do nothing.”
“Well, they’re magical wardrobes, of course, although they don’t lead to any fairy wonderlands.”
“We can’t let it be controlled by the sorts of people who believe Voldemort was just some misunderstood sweetie who wanted everybody to be pals.”
“I think James here has either just made a gorgeous friend or a sultry enemy,” Zane said, watching the swoop and drape of Tabitha’s robes as she turned the corner. “I can’t say for sure which I am rooting for.”
“When we forget our essential similarities, we forget how to get along, and that cannot but lead to prejudice, discrimination, and eventually, conflict.”
“The dull parts of life spread out in your memory and crowd out the exciting parts until they just seem like little flashes. (Ron Weasley)”
“It has been said,” Jackson continued, beginning to pace slowly around the room, “that there is no such thing as a stupid question. No doubt you yourselves have been told this. Questions, it is supposed, are the sign of an inquisitive mind.” He stopped, surveying them critical y. “On the contrary, questions are merely the sign of a student who has not been paying attention.”
“The challenge of good men is not to thwart change, but to mold it as it comes, so that it may benefit rather than destroy.”
“Potter, you really are just as foolish and preposterously self-absorbed as your father.”
“Cedric nodded to Snape. Snape knew the ghost didn’t like to talk to him. Something about a ghost talking to a painting seemed to disturb the boy. Nothing technically human on either end, Snape figured.”
“I don’t see anybody,” he whispered to the two figures behind him. “No gates or locks, neither. Do you think maybe they’re using invisible barriers or something?”
“You painted all those characters into the paintings all over the school, and every one of them is a portrait of you, but in disguise. That’s how you’ve been watching us. You spread yourself out through all those paintings. And since you are the original artist, nobody else can ever destroy the portraits. It was your way of assuring you could always keep an eye on things, even after death.”
“By the time James had dressed and made his way down to the Great Hal for breakfast, it was nearly ten o’clock. Less than a dozen students could be seen moving disconsolately among the detritus of the morning’s earlier rush. At the far corner of the Slytherin table, Zane sat hunched and squinting under a beam of sunlight. Across from him was Ralph, who saw James enter and waved him over. As James made his way across the Hal , four or five house-elves, each wearing large linen napkins with the Hogwarts crest embroidered on them, circled the tables, meandering in what at first appeared to be random paths. Occasional y, one of them would duck beneath the surface of a table and then reappear a moment later, tossing a stray fork or half a biscuit casual y onto the mess of the table. As James passed one of the elves, it straightened, raised its spindly arms, and then brought them swiftly down. The contents on the table in front of him swirled together as if caught in a miniature cyclone. With a great clattering of dishes and silverware, the corners of the tablecloth shot upwards and twisted around the pile of breakfast debris, creating a huge clanking bag floating improbably over the polished wood table. The house-elf leaped from floor to bench to tabletop, and then jumped, turning in midair and landing lightly on top of the bag. It grasped the twisted top of the bag, using the knot as if it were a set of reins, and turned the bag, driving it bobbingly toward the gigantic service doors in the side of the Hal . James ducked as the bag swooped over his head.”
“Man’s time is short on the earth, but we trees watch the years march past like days. The stars are motionless to you, but we watch and study the heavens as a dance,” the dryad said,”
“How do you say hello to someone when you 've just found out that you
love him?”
“The heart wants what it wants, Dolp. You don't plan on making your life complicated, it just happens,and you don"t do it on purpose, and you don't do it to hurt people who love you. It just turns out that way sometimes.”
“children could be taught to hear and feel music in their minds rather than just with their ears; how to make them feel music as a thing of movement rather than a dull, lifeless subject; how to awaken a child’s sensitivity.”
“Hey, you wanna drop back a few paces? Did you forget how spying works? You're supposed to at least aim for unobtrusive. The others pretty much have it down, but you're about as inconspicuous as a drag queen at a Girl Scout meeting.”
“all [the authorities] did was to guard the distant and invisible interests of distant and invisible masters”
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