“Which came first, the phoenix or the flame?”"...I think the answer is that a circle has no beginning.""Well reasoned.”

“Which came first, the phoenix or the flame?”

“Fawkes is a phoenix, Harry. Phoenixes burst into flame when it is time for them to die and are reborn from the ashes.”

“I was supposed to be waiting up here when you got back, only your Phoenix lot got in the way...”“Yes, they do that,” said Dumbledore.”

“First think of the person who lives in disguise,Who deals in secrets and tells naught but lies.Next, tell me what's always the last thing to mend,The middle of middle and the end of end?And finally give me the sound often heardDuring the search for a hard-to-find word.Now string them together, and answer me this,Which creature would you be unwilling to kiss?”

“Somewhere out in the darkness, a phoenix was singing in a way Harry had never heard before: a stricken lament of terrible beauty. And Harry felt, as he had felt about phoenix song before, that the music was inside him, not without: It was his own grief turned magically to song..”

“Harry was just thinking that all he needed was for Dumbledore's pet bird to die while he was all alone in the office with it, when the bird burst into flames.”