Bangs and smoke were more often the marks of ineptitude than expertise.

What's life without a little risk?

It is not our abilities that show what we truly are. It is our choices.

We've all got both light and dark inside us. What matters is the part we choose to act on. That's who we really are.

Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.

It is our choices... that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.

We do not need magic to transform our world. We carry all of the power we need inside ourselves already.

The world is full of wonderful things you haven't seen yet. Don't ever give up on the chance of seeing them.

There is an expiry date on blaming your parents for steering you in the wrong direction; the moment you are old enough to take the wheel, responsibility lies with you.

Gryffindor, where dwell the brave at heart!

Twilight fell: The sky turned to a light, dusky purple littered with tiny silver stars.

Many people become prosperous only to realize the illusion that Success is more Fulfillment than Achievement.

My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular.

Dan Nilsson even remarks of compound eyes that ‘It is only a small exaggeration to say that evolution seems to be fighting a desperate battle to improve a basically disastrous design.

I didn't lose my virginity until I was 18 The first time was a nightmare. Who shows you how to use a condom?

A throne is God's purpose for you; a cross is God's path for you; faith is God's plan for you.

I'd...bet enthusiasm for 'ethnic cleansing' will wane if only sticks and rocks are available for the warring parties.

The door is closed to prayer unless it is opened with the key of trust.

If you're playing the bad guy, you have to find what you like about them.

I usually just get into a police character by drinking coffee and eating donuts, but those days are over.

To try to be at once a Lithuanian yeshiva and a New England prep school: that was the unspoken motto of the Maimonides School of Brookline, Mass., where I studied for 12 years.