“Stone dead," said Howard, as though there were degrees of deadness, and the kind that Barry Fairbrother had contracted was particularly sordid.”

“But you're dead,' said Harry.'Oh, yes,' said Dumbledore matter-of-factly.'Then... am I dead too?''Ah,' said Dumbledore, smiling still more broadly. 'That is the question, isn't it? On the whole, dear boy, I think not.”

“I wish...I wish I were dead...”“And what use would that be to anyone?”

“Howard and Shirley were clothed, always, in an invisible layer of decorum that they never laid aside.”

“Naturally Shirley had known, as they slid stock words and phrases back and forth between them like beads on an abacus, that Howard must be as brimful of ecstasy as she was; but to express these feelings out loud, when the news of death was still fresh in the air, would have been tantamount to dancing naked and shrieking obscenities, and Howard and Shirley were clothed, always, in an invisible layer of decorum that they never laid aside.”

“Howard was almost as fond of this hall as he was of his own shop. The Brownies used it on Tuesdays, and the Women's Institute on Wednesdays. It had hosted jumble sales and Jubilee celebrations, wedding receptions and wakes, and it smelled of all of these things: of stale clothes and coffee urns, and the ghosts of home-baked cakes and meat salads; of dust and human bodies; but primarily of aged wood and stone.”

“But who could bear to know which stars were already dead, she thought, blinking up at the night sky; could anybody stand to know that they all were?”