“No, he wasn't a pig. He was a lonely, hurt man who didn't know how to cope in a world that had turned its back on him. [Astrid]”

“The facts of his existence are plain. I know that he will never silence those unspeakable voices. He heard how people killed, and how they died and their voices infected him, coursed through his body, poisoned him. He didn't know how to turn off the noise, or turn the hate back out onto the world like the rest of us. He turned it on himself. You could see that from the scars on him.”

“Hagrid looked down at his umbrella and scratched his beard. 'Shouldn'ta lost me temper,' he said ruefully, 'but it didn't work anyway. Meant ter turn him into a pig, but I suppose he was so much like a pig anyway there wasn't much left ter do.”

“The stories didn't seem to care who he was or what he could do; it didn't matter. In their world, he wasn't alone. In their world, a freak like him - like him - could become a hero.”

“He shook his head, but I kept flattering him, telling him how fine his beard was, how fair his skin was (ha!), how it was obvious from his nose and forehead that he wasn't some pig herd who had converted, but a true-blue Muslim who had flown here on a magic carpet all the way from Mecca, and he grunted with satisfaction”

“It had hurt me that he hadn't looked back. I just didn't know it until now.”