Broomstick Quotes

DRACO: I always envied you them, you know - Weasley and Granger. I had -
GINNY: Crabbe and Goyle.
DRACO: Two lunks who wouldn't know one end of a broomstick from another. You - the three of you - you shone, you know? You liked each other. You had fun. I envied you those friendships more than anything else.
GINNY: I envied them too.
HARRY looks at GINNY, surprised. ~ Jack Thorne

Witches and sorcerers cultivated plants with the power to "cast spells" -- in our vocabulary, "psychoactive" plants. Their potion recipes called for such things as datura, opium poppies, belladona, hashish, fly-agaric mushrooms (Amanita muscaria), and the skin of toads (which can contain DMT, a powerful hallucinogen). These ingredients would be combined in a hempseed-oil-based "flying ointment" that the witches would then administer vaginally using a special dildo. This was the "broomstick" by which these women were said to travel. (119) ~ Michael Pollan

There is a special sensation in getting good wood on the ball and driving a double down the left-field line as the crowd in the ballpark rises to its feet and cheers. But, I also remember how much fun I had as a skinny barefoot kid hitting a tennis ball with a broomstick on a quiet, dusty street in Panama. ~ Rod Carew

Seen the Fizzing Whizbees, Harry?" said Ron, grabbing him and leading him over to their barrel. "And the Jelly Slugs? And the Acid Pops? Fred gave me one of those when I was seven - it burnt a hole right through my tongue. I remember Mum walloping him with her broomstick. ~ J.K. Rowling

The wolf blood, Arya remembered now. I'll be as strong as Robb, I said I would. She took a deep breath, then lifted the broomstick in both hands and brought down across her knee. It broke with a loud crack, and she threw the pieces aside. 'I am a direwolf, and done with the wooden teeth. ~ George R R Martin

Harry lost any sense of where they were: Streetlights above him, yells around him, he was clinging to the sidecar for dear life. Hedwig's cage, the Firebolt, and his rucksack slipped from beneath his knees
"No - HEDWIG!"
The broomstick spun to earth, but he just managed to seize the strap of his rucksack and the top of the cage as the motorbike swung the right way up again. A second's relief, and then another burst of green light. The owl screeched and fell to the floor of the cage.
"No - NO!"
The motorbike zoomed forward; Harry glimpsed hooded Death Eaters scattering as Hagrid blasted through their circle.
"Hedwig - Hedwig - "
But the owl lay motionless and pathetic as a toy on the floor of her cage. ~ J.K. Rowling

You can't appreciate home till you've left it, money till it's spent, your wife till she's joined a woman's club, nor Old Glory till you see it hanging on a broomstick on the shanty of a consul in a foreign town. ~ O. Henry

That's not interactive, there's no back-and-forth with the other player and how much fun is it to watch someone incredibly good at moving their eyes? And then whichever Seeker gets lucky swoops in and grabs the Snitch and makes everyone else's work moot. It's like someone took a real game and grafted on this pointless extra position so that you could be the Most Important Player without needing to really get involved or learn the rest of it. Who was the first Seeker, the King's idiot son who wanted to play Quidditch but couldn't understand the rules? Actually, now that Harry thought about it, that seemed like a surprisingly good hypothesis. Put him on a broomstick and tell him to catch the shiny thing ... ~ Eliezer Yudkowsky

You are aware, are you, that painting a few stars on a perfectly ordinary broomstick doesn't mean it will get airborne? ~ Terry Pratchett

One word, two lips, three four five fingers form a fist.
One corner, two parents, three four five reasons to hide.
One child, two eyes, three four seventeen years of fear.
A broken broomstick, a pair of wile faces, angry whispers, locks on my door. ~ Tahereh Mafi

You have an instinct, Sophie, that's how," said Howl. "Nothing is safe from you. If I were to court a girl who lived on an iceberg in the middle of the ocean, sooner or later - probably sooner - I'd look up to see you swooping overhead on a broomstick. In fact, by now I'd be disappointed in you if I didn't see you. ~ Diana Wynne Jones

Look at a Segway and tell me it's not the world's shittiest witch's broomstick. We only wanted jetpacks because we couldn't make magic carpets work. ~ Warren Ellis

Books were my broomstick. They allowed me to fly to other realms where anything was possible. ~ Pam Grossman

This," Cole said, the broomstick braced on the ground beside him, looking like Moses in sweatpants, "is the reason raccoons don't take over the planet. ~ Maggie Steifvater

Witch Mildred was invited
to the wondrous Witches' Wobble,
a Halloween festivity
where witches go to gobble.

Her snakeskin invitation read:

Feasting Starts at Eight!
A Grand Buffet (with Skunk Filet!)

Hopping on her broomstick,
She took off from a thicket.
She raced along the back roads
to dodge a speeding ticket.

A skeleton soon hailed her.
(His bones could use some meat!)
He pled, "Please! I'm so hungry,
I rattle head to feet."

A jack-o'-lantern hollered,
"Please take me from this wall,
for some, I dread, might use my head
as a soccer ball."

Soon the three encountered
a ghost who was in tears.
"Please take me from this graveyard.
It's much too spooky here."

A shaky, quaky mummy
called, "I'm ready to collapse.
Please find me a warm hearthside,
for I forgot my wraps!"

A bat swooped down upon them.
He squeaked, "Please wait for me!
I'll go batty when the sexton bongs
the bells in my belfry."

A black cat yowled,
"Please take me.
I need some company,
for when I cross their pathways,
people run from me! ~ Elizabeth Spurr

In a vivid parable to Soeur Philippine Molinéry, Bernadette asks, "What do you do with a broom when you're done sweeping?" Soeur Philippine got surprised and answered, "What kind of a Question is that?"
"Yes, I am asking you where you put it when you are done with it?
"'....In a corner behind the door.'
Then gleefully Bernadette said, "Well, I was like a broomstick for the Blessed Virgin; when she no longer needed me, she put me in my place behind the door.'
And with a clap of her hands, she added, "Here I am and here I'll stay."
"Both her voice and gesture were very happy," the witness went on to say. ~ St. Bernadette

The animators are fantastic though. They'll shoot their own reference material, and just go into the car park or something. And they might shoot a very funny scene, or sometimes a serious scene. But they're really just trying to work out the motion. Yet what we get treated to is hilarious video of someone running around a parking lot with a broomstick and a helmet! ~ Chris Sanders

Well, thought Harry, as he crossed Magnolia Crescent, turned into Magnolia Road and headed towards the darkening play park, he had (by and large) done as Sirius advised. He had at least resisted the temptation to tie his trunk to his broomstick and set off for The Burrow by himself. In fact, Harry thought his behaviour had been very good considering how frustrated and angry he felt at being stuck in Privet Drive so long, reduced to hiding in flowerbeds in the hope of hearing something that might point to what Lord Voldemort was doing. Nevertheless, it was quite galling to be told not to be rash by a man who had served twelve years in the wizard prison, Azkaban, escaped, attempted to commit the murder he had been convicted for in the first place, then gone on the run with a stolen Hippogriff. Harry ~ J.K. Rowling

I followed him through the halls of the enormous church until we got to the staff's kitchen. He went to the fridge, opened it, and came out with a bottle of bourbon. He poured some into a coffee cup, drank it down, and poured some more. He offered me the bottle.
No, thanks. Aren't you supposed to drink vodka?
Aren't you supposed to wear a pointy hat and ride on a flying broomstick?
Touche, I said. ~ Jim Butcher

In those days, long before, a view over the rooftops of Paris was an unaffordable luxury. The apartment he had shared with a mousy young writer from Laon had a view of the Jardin de Luxembourg – if he stuck his head out of the window as far as it would go and twisted it to the left, a smudge of green foliage appeared in the corner of one eye. That had been his best apartment to date. They had decorated it in the 'Bohemian' style of the 1830s : a few volumes of Shakespeare and Victor Hugo, a Phrygian cap, an Algerian hookah, a skull on a broomstick handle (from the brother of a friend, Charles Toubin, who was an intern at one of the big hospitals) and, of course, a window box of geraniums, which was not only pretty but also illegal. (Death by falling window box was always high up the official list of fatalities.) For a proper view of Paris, they visited Henry's painter friends who lived in a warren of attic rooms near the Barriere d'Enfer and called themselves the Water-Drinkers. When the weather was fine and the smell of their own squalor became unbearable, they clambered onto the roof and sat on the gutters and ridges, sketching chimneyscapes, and sending up more smoke from their pipes than the fireplaces below.
Three of the Water-Drinkers had since died of various illnesses known collectively as 'lack of money'. When the last of the three was buried, in the spring of 1844, Henry and the others had found themselves at the graveside without a sou to give a gravedigger. ' ~ Graham Robb

That woman's been riding the same broomstick for almost a hundred years. ~ Seth Adam Smith

She wasn't reading Deathly Hallows at all. Her book wasn't orange but rose and water and sand, and featured a kid on a broomstick and white unicorn. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. She didn't notice me staring at her. 'Oh, I envy you,' I thought, but was smiling for her. She had just begun. ~ Melissa Anelli

What's the good of that if I'm not on the House team?" said Malfoy, looking sulky and bad-tempered. "Harry Potter got a Nimbus Two Thousand last year. Special permission from Dumbledore so he could play for Gryffindor. He's not even that good, it's just because he's famous … famous for having a stupid scar on his forehead. …"
Malfoy bent down to examine a shelf full of skulls.
"… everyone thinks he's so smart, wonderful Potter with his scar and his broomstick - "
"You have told me this at least a dozen times already," said Mr. Malfoy, with a quelling look at his son. ~ J.K. Rowling

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. ~ G. Norman Lippert

So, um, where's your broomstick?" he countered, his face turning pink from his effort at not laughing.

"Broomsticks are *sooo* 1695," I replied, rolling my eye. "Modern witches use vibrators and drop acid just like everyone else."

"What?" He frowned, looking confused.

"Yeah, *flying on broomsticks* equals a big-ass euphemism for pagan women getting their freak on with broom handles greased up with morning glory butter," I said. "Sometimes strychnine. Not a good idea, but hey, back in the day they used to think a wolf's testicle wrapped in a greasy rag was a good barrier contraceptive. So, yeah, no broomsticks for me. But thanks *ever* so much for asking about my sex life when we've only just met. ~ Lucy A. Snyder

Hang on a moment!" said Ron sharply. "We've forgotten someone!" "Who?" asked Hermione. "The house-elves, they'll all be down in the kitchen, won't they?" "You mean we ought to get them fighting?" asked Harry. "No," said Ron seriously, "I mean we should tell them to get out. We don't want any more Dobbies, do we? We can't order them to die for us - " There was a clatter as the basilisk fangs cascaded out of Hermione's arms. Running at Ron, she flung them around his neck and kissed him full on the mouth. Ron threw away the fangs and broomstick he was holding and responded with such enthusiasm that he lifted Hermione off her feet. "Is this the moment?" Harry asked weakly, and when nothing happened except that Ron and Hermione gripped each other still more firmly and swayed on the spot, he raised his voice. "OI! There's a war going on here! ~ J.K. Rowling

Without electricity or gas, the kitchen became a twilight mausoleum of dead appliances. One day, Natasha had an idea. Wearing latex gloves she found in Sonja's room, she scrubbed the innards of the oven and refrigerator with steel wool and bleach. She cut a broomstick to the width of the refrigerator compartment, jammed it in below the thermostat control, and pulled out the plastic shelves. In her bedroom, she gathered clothes from the floor in sweeping armfuls and deposited them before the refrigerator and the oven. Ever since she had begun working for the shuttle trader, her wardrobe exceeded her closet space. She hung silk evening dresses and cashmere sweaters on the broomstick bar, set folded jeans and blouses on the oven rack. When finished, she opened the doors to her new closet and bureau and felt pleased with her ingenuity. This is how you will survive, she told herself. You will turn the holes in your life into storage space. ~ Anthony Marra

I do not think that I could ever really love a woman who had not, at one time or another, been up on a broomstick. ~ Isak Dinesen

Women are angels, and when someone breaks your wings...We simply continue to fly...On a broomstick. We are flexible like that ~ Grace

It was never easy being a witch. Oh, the broomstick was great, but to be a witch you needed to be sensible, so sensible that sometimes it hurt. You dealt with the reality - not what people wanted. ~ Terry Pratchett

Nothing is safe from you. If I were to court a girl who lived on an iceberg in the middle of the ocean, sooner or later - probably sooner - I'd look up to see you swooping overhead on a broomstick. In fact, by now I'd be disappointed in you if I didn't see you."
"Are you off to the iceberg today?" Sophie retorted. ~ Diana Wynne Jones

They chose the one nearest a gold-coloured cauldron that was emitting one of the most seductive scents Harry had ever inhaled: somehow it reminded him simultaneously of treacle tart, the woody smell of a broomstick handle and something flowery he thought he might have smelled at The Burrow. ~ J.K. Rowling

Shouldn't the preacher who married the couple in the first place have to fly back in on a broomstick for that, too - that moving on? Shouldn't there be some ritual involving a long walk over hot coals while all the guests who'd been at the wedding watched, weeping, throwing stones at your bare ~ Laura Kasischke

Listen, Harr,y can I have a go on it? Can I?"
"I don't think anyone should ride that broom just yet!" said Hermoine shrilly.
Harry and Ron looked at her.
"What d'you think Harry's going to do with it - sweep the floor?" said Ron. ~ J.K. Rowling

Sanguine took a moment, finding it hard to process the information. He ... this guy uses a wand? For real? He actually uses a wand? Like a wizard? ... Don't the other Necromancers have any sense of pride? What's he gonna do next, fly around on a broomstick? This ain't Harry Potter. ~ Derek Landy

Do something!" Norwood told him.
"Do what?" Uncle Mort's face was furious. "Fly up there and get it? You bring your broomstick, Hel? ~ Gina Damico

One doesn't become a witch to run around being harmful, or to run around being helpful either, a district visitor on a broomstick. It's to escape all that - to have a life of one's own, not an existence doled out to by others. ~ Sylvia Townsend Warner

Now Snape was head to head with Mundungus in an unfamiliar tavern, Mundungus's face looking curiously blank, Snape frowning in concentration.
"You will suggest to the Order of the Phoenix," Snape murmured, "that they use decoys. Polyjuice Potion. Identical Potters. It is the only thing that might work. You will forget that I have suggested this. You will present it as your own idea. You understand?"
"I understand," murmured Mundungus, his eyes unfocused…
Now Harry was flying alongside Snape on a broomstick through a clear dark night: He was accompanied by other hooded Death Eaters, and ahead were Lupin and a Harry who was really George…A Death Eater moved ahead of Snape and raised his wand, pointing it directly at Lupin's back--
"Sectumsempra!" shouted Snape.
But the spell, intended for the Death Eater's wand hand, missed and hit George instead--
And next, Snape was kneeling in Sirius's old bedroom. Tears were dripping from the end of his hooked nose as he read the old letter from Lily. The second page carried only a few words:

could ever have been friends with Gellert Grindelwald. I think her mind's going, personally!
Lots of love,
Lily

Snape took the page bearing Lily's signature, and her love, and tucked it inside his robes. Then he ripped in two the photograph he was also holding, so that he kept the part from which Lily laughed, throwing the portion showing James and Harry back onto the floor, under the chest ~ J.K. Rowling

Granny Weatherwax was in trouble.

First of all, she decided, she should never have allowed Hilta to talk her into borrowing her broomstick. It was elderly, erratic, would fly only at night and even then couldn't manage a speed much above a trot.

Its lifting spells had worn so thin that it wouldn't even begin to operate until it was already moving at a fair lick. It was, in fact, the only broomstick ever to need bump-starting.

And it was while Granny Weatherwax, sweating and cursing, was running along a forest path holding the damn thing at shoulder height for the tenth time that she had found the bear trap.

The second problem was that a bear had found it first. In fact this hadn't been too much of a problem because Granny, already in a bad temper, hit it right between the eyes with the broomstick and it was now sitting as far away from her as it was possible to get in a pit, and trying to think happy thoughts. ~ Terry Pratchett

And the other thing for the sort of posher kids was a sort of lethal scooter, you know. One of the things that you just push along with your - really heavy, lethal, you know, trap your fingers in and every bit of metal got rusty very quickly. And the girls I seem to remember they had a thing like a broomstick with a horse's head on the top which they sat astride. ~ Nick Lowe