G. Norman Lippert Quotes

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,

None of us were kidding when we said we wanted to have enough kids to make a Quidditch team, were we?

Greetings again, dear reader! So we've come to the third book in the James Potter series, and things are about to change pretty dramatically. Are you prepared? I'd advise you to keep your wits and wands at the ready as we embark on this journey.

somethings are best left unknown

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.

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 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.

I've heard enough Potter explanations throughout the years to know the general shape of them, anyway.

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.

How perfectly whimsical. I expect we'll be roasting marshmallows over the fireplace and singing happy sing-alongs round about midnight, yes? Perhaps someone could point me in the direction of the dormitories.

Unfortunately, as anyone who has lived through a tragedy knows, life does, rather infuriatingly, go on.

Mr. Grey trailed behind Mr. Saffron, frowning massively and watching the mysterious doors. There were hundreds
maybe thousands
of them along the endless corridor. None had names or markings of any kind. In the lead, Mr. Pink could be heard counting softly under his breath.

Don't call me Bistle, yeh sodding half-wit," said the gravely voice, which belonged to a particularly grizzly goblin in black shirt and trousers. "I'm Mr. Saffron when we're on the job. And blast yehr sixth sense. Yeh're just a great coward whenever yeh get in an unfamiliar place. The sooner we get on, the sooner it'll be over and we'll be back to the shack to celebrate.

Emotions are not bad, but they must be examined. Know yourself. Feelings always seem valid, but they can confuse. And they can, as you have seen, be used against you.

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.

I know you said your dad and his mates used to do this all the time, but one of them was a girl, remember?' 'Yeah, and she didn't eat seven meals a day, either,' Zane said. The three of them shuffled down the darkened corridor, crammed under the Invisibility Cloak.

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.

The elves had a coalition agreement with the school, the head elf had said. It almost sounded like they'd unionized, and that an essential rule of the elf union was that only elves did elf work. Perhaps they viewed it as job security. James wasn't sure if Aunt Hermione would view this as an improvement or a setback.

The Slytherin sleeping quarters felt to James like someplace a very tasteful and wealthy pirate captain might sleep. The room was wide, with a sunken floor and low ceilings hung with gargoyle head lanterns. The large beds were mahogany with great square pillars at each corner. The Slytherin House crest hung on curtains at the end of each bed. The three boys clambered onto Ralph's immaculately made bed.

But that was where his excitement began to melt into cold anxiety. His dad had been the Gryffindor Seeker, the youngest one in Hogwarts history. The best he, James, could hope for was to match that record. That's what everyone would expect of him, the first-born son of the famous hero. He remembered the story, told to him dozens of times (although never by his own dad) of how the young Harry Potter had won his first Golden Snitch by virtually jumping off his broom, catching the golden ball in his mouth and nearly swallowing it. The tellers of the tale would always laugh uproariously, delightedly, and if Dad was there, he'd smile sheepishly as they clapped him on the back. When James was four, he found that famed Snitch in a shoe box in the bottom of the dining room hutch. His mum told him it'd been a gift to Dad from the old school headmaster. The tiny wings no longer worked, and the golden ball had a thin coat of dust and tarnish on it, but James was mesmerized by it. It was the first Snitch he had ever seen close up. It seemed both smaller and larger than he'd imagined, and the weight of it in his small hand was surprising. This is the famous Snitch, James thought reverently, the one from the story, the one caught by my dad. He asked his dad if he could keep it, stored in the shoebox when he wasn't playing with it, in his room. His dad agreed easily, happily, and James moved the shoebox from the bottom of the hutch to a spot under the head of his bed, next to his toy broom.

When we forget our essential similarities, we forget how to get along, and that cannot but lead to prejudice, discrimination, and eventually, conflict.

Love is like chains of unbreakable steel. Love is like iron weights, heavier than the world. Love can crush just as surely as it can lift up. Everything else wilts before it.

1. Shadow of Legends

Ted shrugged. "Dunno. We got sent off to find you three while McGonagal was stil getting everybody together. I assume she meant to meet him herself. She was looking pretty peaked about it if you ask me.

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.

Well, they're magical wardrobes, of course, although they don't lead to any fairy wonderlands.

The last weeks of the school year spun out before James like a blur, remarkably free of deathly peril and adventure, but packed nonetheless with the lesser stresses of schoolwork and final essays and wand practicals, all of which were relatively welcome in the wake of the Hall of Elders' Crossing. To no one's great surprise, Hufflepuff was awarded the House Cup, being the only house to avoid major point deductions for involvement in the various Merlin conspiracy skullduggeries. The broomstick caper alone had cost Ravenclaw and Gryffindor fifty points each.

Hope is never dead.

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

Know your feelings. Master them or they will master you.

Merlin's eyes narrowed. We require heroes of wit and cleverness, unafraid to foil convention in order to defend a higher allegiance. Battle skills matter not. What we need at this moment, James Potter, are scoundrels with honor.

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.

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?

...observing things changes the outcome.

The earth was quiet around him, but alive. He felt it through the soles of his feet when he walked. The vibrancy of the forest streamed into him, strengthening him. But there was less of it than there should be. The world had changed, and was still changing. It was being tamed, losing its feral wildness and strength. Alongside it, his power was dimming as well. He was still unmatched, but there were blind spots in his communion with the earth, and those blind spots were growing, shutting him off bit by bit, reducing him. The realms of men were expanding, scouring the earth, parsing it into meaningless plots and fields, breaking up the magic polarities of the wilderness... That which made him so powerful, his connection to the earth, was also becoming his only weakness. In a cold rage, he walked. As he passed, the trees spoke to him, but even the woodsy voices of the naiads and the dryads was dimming. Their echo was confused and broken, divided.

I had an action figure that did that," Graham nodded. "I tried to use it on my mum, once. Got me in no end of Barney.

The greatest lie of the greatest evil is that it doesn't exist.

That's right, Potter," Noah nodded, seeing James' untouched plate. "The less you eat, the less you'll have to throw up when you're in the air. Of course, some of us see a little well-aimed sick as a great defensive technique. You've had your f irst broom lesson with Professor Ridcully, right?

Fairness is a myth among a fallen humankind, but equality of struggle can be maintained, even if it is only a pale ghost of true

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.

You'll never make sense of his notes. You just have to listen to his lecture," Graham whispered
confidentially. "It's a challenge, but the good news is that he's been giving the same tests for forty years. The
answers are carved right into the tops of the desks. See?

Very quietly, James slipped out of bed and shrugged into his bathrobe. The stone floor was cool under his feet as he stood and listened, tilting his head. He turned slowly, and as he looked toward the door, the figure there moved. He hadn't seen it appear, it was simply there, floating, where a moment before there had been darkness. James startled and backed into his bed, almost falling backwards onto it. Then he recognized the ghostly shape. It was the same wispy, white figure he'd seen chase the interloper off the school grounds, the ghostly shape that had come to look like a young man as it came back to the castle. In the darkness of the doorway, the figure seemed much brighter than it had appeared in the morning sunlight. It was wispy and shifting, with only the barest suggestion of its human shape. It spoke again without moving.

Confused you may be, but uncertain you are not.

Rain fell in great sheets, hitting the pavement hard enough to send up a blattering, dirty mist. A small man stood on the corner, under the only working streetlamp, and studied the street.

James Potter sat up in his bed, stifling a gasp. He listened very intently, peering around the darkened sleeping chamber. All around him were the small sounds of sleeping Gryffindors. Ted rolled over and snorted, muttering in his sleep. James held his breath. He'd awakened a few minutes earlier with the sound of his own name in his ears. It had been like a voice in a dream: distant and whispered, as if blown on smoke down a long, dark tunnel. He had just about convinced himself that it had, in fact, been the tail of a dream and drifted back to sleep when he'd heard it again. It seemed to come out of the walls themselves, a faraway sound, still somehow right next to him, like a chorus of whispers saying his full name.

Well," Prescott said, "the chocolate frog was pretty convincing. I didn't really ...

He made sure to miss Josephina's lips by a wide mark. A moment later, the lights extinguished and Tabitha cal ed for a ten-minute break while the stage crew refil ed the rain machine. That night, James had the dream one more time, although this time he felt that it was a true dream and not a direct vision into someone else's reality. It began as always with the flash and whicker of blades and the rattle of old wood. The figure in the dream walked toward the rippling pool and looked in. As always, two faces swam up out of the depths, a young man and a young woman. This time, however, they looked different. He recognized them vaguely as his own long dead grandparents, his dad's mum and dad. They didn't seem to be looking at the girl with the long dark hair. Instead, they seemed to be looking directly at James, where he floated in the darkness next to her. Their faces seemed grave and worried, and although they couldn't speak, they communicated with their eyes : Beware, grandson; watch closely and step lightly. Beware…

It isn't your job to save the world. Even if you do, it'll just go and get itself into danger again, and again, and again. It's the nature of things.

She was tough," James said, "but nice. She wanted to talk things out with Slytherin even after he'd tried to kill the lot of us. But she wasn't a pushover. None of them were. They were hardcore. I'll tell you more tomorrow. How'd you all know I'd gone missing?

Phew," Zane muttered as James plopped down next to him and reached for the last piece of toast. "These little waiters of yours may be weird-lookin' buggers, but they know how to make a good cup of coffee.

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.

A hero is just somebody who does the right thing when it would be far, far easier to do nothing.
-Cedric Diggory-

Go for it, Aunt Ginny! Knock him flying! You can always have another kid! One with better manners and less stinky feet!

James' first concern had been Ralph, who was indeed travelling over the holiday, staying with his dad at his flat in London. Zane assured them that he'd already been to see Ralph, warning him to keep his wand handy and try to never be alone.

Yes. Yes, thank you," Headmistress McGonagal cal ed over the applause. "That wil be enough. We are al quite, er, happy that we have young Mr. Potter here with us this year. Now, if you'l please resume your seats…" James began his ascent of the dais while the applause died down. As he turned and sat down on the chair, he heard the Headmistress mutter, "So we can finish this and have dinner before the next equinox.

I don't know who this 'everybody' is that you speak of, but I am beginning to suspect that the Hogwarts you believe you know is not the Hogwarts we currently occupy. Now come here.

They're not waiters, they're house-elves. I read about them yesterday," Ralph said, happily munching half a sausage. The other half was speared on the end of his fork, which he used like a pointer, indicating the elves. "They work downstairs. They're like the elves in that kids' story. The ones that came at night and did all the work for the cobbler.

Potter, you really are just as foolish and preposterously self-absorbed as your father.

Merlin nodded gravely. Doing what is right is nearly always simple, Mr. Potter. But it is never easy.