Giant Squid Quotes

You think you’re funny,” she said coldly. “But you’re just an arrogant, bullying toerag, Potter. Leave him alone.” “I will if you go out with me, Evans,” said James quickly. “Go on . . . Go out with me, and I’ll never lay a wand on old Snivelly again.” “I wouldn’t go out with you if it was a choice between you and the giant squid,” said Lily.

Until I can feel as ecstatic about having a baby as I felt about going to New Zealand to search for giant squid, I cannot have a baby.

Kidnapped by a vampire, death by a squid. How tragic.

Fantasy and science fiction can be literal as well as allegorical and there’s nothing wrong with enjoying a monster like a giant squid for what it is, as well as searching for metaphor.

It wasn’t that I did not believe in ghosts; it was that I believed in them in the same noncommittal way that I believed in giant squids or lucky coins or Belgium. They were things that probably existed, but I had never given any occasion to really care one way or another.

Our leaders know we’re turning into a giant ghetto and they are taking every last hubcap they can get their hands on before the rest of us wake up and realize what’s happened.

Even the weather seemed to be celebrating; as June approached, the days became cloudless and sultry, and all anybody felt like doing was strolling onto the grounds and flopping down on the grass with several pints of iced pumpkin juice, perhaps playing a casual game of Gobstones or watching the giant squid propel itself dreamily across the surface of the lake.

What you'll have of me after I journey to that great Death Star in the sky is an extremely accomplished daughter, a few books, and a picture of a stern-looking girl wearing some kind of metal bikini lounging on a giant drooling squid, behind a newscaster informing you of the passing of Princess Leia after a long battle with her head.

A story is a map of the world. A gloriously colored and wonderful map, the sort one often sees framed and hanging on the wall in a study full of plush chairs and stained-glass lamps: painstakingly lettered, researched down to the last pebble and participle, drawn with dash and flair, with cloud-goddesses in the corners and giant squid squirming up out of the sea...[T]here are more maps in the world than anyone can count. Every person draws a map that shows themselves at the center.

The indigestible parts of giant squid, in particular their beaks, accumulate in sperm whales’ stomachs into the substance known as ambergris, which is used as a fixative in perfumes. The next time you spray on Chanel Number 5 (assuming you do), you may wish to reflect that you are dousing yourself in distillate of unseen sea monster.

Ty plopped down in the seat next to Kelly and peered over at his friends. “What the hell happened to you two this morning?” Nick began to snicker and Kelly rolled his eyes as he took a sip of coffee. “I fell out of the bed.” “Fell?” Zane asked. “Or you were pushed?” “Legit fell. Rolled right out of that thing and took the covers with me. I dreamt I was being attacked by a giant squid and woke up thinking I was drowning.” “I woke up cold and very confused,” Nick added.

It wasn’t that I did not believe in ghosts; it was that I believed in them in the same noncommittal way that I believed in giant squids or lucky coins or Belgium.

But the more I hint I want to finish it, the tighter she holds on. It’s like going out with the giant squid.

And the continual non-up-turnance of so valuable a commodity as a giant squid—the thought of getting their alembics on which made the city’s alchemists whine like dogs—was provoking more and more interest from London’s repo-men and -women.

Virgin, right?" the voice asks again. It comes from the tall one with white-blond hair falling into his eyes. Frankie is still giggling, and my entire body goes hot and red, despite the chill in the water. If Frankie thinks she's just going to auction me off, well ... I don't know. It's kind of hard to be witty when you're trying to call forth a giant sea squid to swallow you up and drag you down to the depths of the ocean floor, never to be seen, heard from, or mocked again.

All day, the colours had been those of dusk, mist moving like a water creature across the great flanks of mountains possessed of ocean shadows and depths. Briefly visible above the vapour, Kanchenjunga was a far peak whittled out of ice, gathering the last of the night, a plume of snow blown high by the storms at its summit. Sai, sitting on the veranda, was reading an article about giant squid in an old National Geographic. Every now and then she looked up at Kanchenjunga, observed its wizard phosphorescence with a shiver. The judge sat at the far corner with his chessboard, playing against himself. Stuffed under his chair where she felt safe was Mutt the dog, snoring gently in her sleep. A single bald lightbulb dangled on a wire above. It was cold, but inside the house, it was still colder, the dark, the freeze, contained by stone walls several feet deep.

No human had ever seen an adult giant squid alive, and though they had eyes as big as apples to scope the dark of the ocean, theirs was a solitude so profound they might never encounter another of their tribe...Could fulfilment ever be felt as deeply as loss? Romantically she decided that love must surely reside in the gap between desire and fulfilment, in the lack, not the contentment. Love was the ache, the anticipation, the retreat, everything around it but the emotion itself.

Look out, everyone! ... We're being attacked by a giant sq ... well, no ... I'd say medium squid!

Until I can feel as ecstatic about having a baby as I felt about going to New Zealand to search for a giant squid, I cannot have a baby.

Tell me, what do you know about giant squid?

It wasn't that I did not believe in ghosts; it was that I believed in them in the same non-commital way that I believed in giant squids or lucky coins or Belgium.

I enjoy Mr. Verne’s work,” she went on brightly. “He writes of such exotic places. But you’ve seen all that sort of thing in person. I suppose it’s nothing to you.” “Of course. Giant squids. Cannibals. Every day.

Smilingly oblivious to the fact that they are in the mouth of hell. Or as Ava and I call it, the Lair of Cthulhu. Cthulhu is a giant squid monster invented by a horror writer who went insane and died here. And you know what, it makes sense.

Don't talk to me about sense. i've been alive for forty-seven years and I have absolutely no understanding of human nature whatsoever. I might as well be living with a completely different species, giant squids or perhaps some kind of insect colony.

It wasn’t that I did not believe in ghosts; it was that I believed in them in the same noncommittal way that I believed in giant squids or lucky coins or Belgium. They were things that probably existed, but I had never had any occasion to really care one way or another.

Trev’s smile turned into a grin. His dark lashes lowered. “Do you know,” he said, “when you smile at me that way, I’d like to…” He broke off his sentence and cleared his throat. “Well. Slay dragons, or something along that line.” “Mere dragons?” she inquired. “I was hoping it would be giant squids.

Ninja beats pirate. Pirate beats ghost. Ghost beats zombie. Zombie beats most. Werewolf beats vampire. Vamp beats Imp. Imp beats fiend. Fiend beats wimp. Wizard beats cyrborg. Cyborg surely beats troll. Troll beats goblin. Goblin eats a hermit’s soul. Hermit beats child. Child beats wagon. Wagon beats moon snake. Moon snake beats dragon. Dragon beats hydra. Hydra beats sailor. Sailor beats teacher. Teacher beats tailor. Tailor beats sun worm. Sun worm beats clown. Clown beats robo-squid. Robo-squid beats town. Town fights jackals. Town will win. Town fights mummies. Town won’t fight again. Zookeeper beats hell hound. Hell hound beats giant. Giant beats accountant. Accountant beats client. Client beats frog. Frog beats himself. Knight beats Big Foot. Big Foot beats elf. Elf beats pixie. Pixie beats specter. Specter beats sea hag. Sea hag beats Hector. Hector beats serpent. Serpent beats rat. Rat beats Grandma. Grandma beats cat. Lava beats demon. Demon beats warlock. Warlock beats dinosaur. Dino beats Spock. Spock beats Lando. Lando beats Qui-Gon. Qui-Gon beats Jar-Jar. Jar-Jar beats none. Rock beats scissors. Scissors beat paper. Paper beats insect. Insect beats vapor. Wood Woman beats Tree Man. Tree Man beats the dark. The dark kills spider-fish. Spider-fish beats shark. You beat me. I beat a dentist. The dentist beats the barber. The barber is menaced. These are the rules, and never forget. Now hand over your money and place your bet.

James frowned, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Fine... the Tele-Portkey has a twin, doesn't it? That's the whole point, right? So where'd you put the other one?" Pretending that she only just then understood his meaning, Mia's mouth fell open and she nodded, smiling as innocently as possible when she told him, "I fed it to the giant squid.

In a single stroke, the Linnaean classification system wiped monsters off the face of the map. There might still be unknown beasts and fearsome creatures out there, but now they each would have a family, a genus, a species; no matter how strange an animal might be, it was now under the rubric of scientific study and discussion. Thus, the medieval world's monsters and wonders were, one by one, either incorporated into this taxonomy or excluded as myth. The kraken became the genus Architeuthis, the giant squid; the sea serpent became Regalecus glesne, the giant oarfish.

What you’ll have of me after I journey to that great Death Star in the sky is an extremely accomplished daughter, a few books, and a picture of a stern-looking girl wearing some kind of metal bikini lounging on a giant drooling squid, behind a newscaster informing you of the passing of Princess Leia after a long battle with her head.

Men may sail the seas for a lifetime and seldom, if ever, come in contact with the nightmare monsters that inhabit the caves and cliffs of the ocean floor. Gazing down at the slightly muddy water, the men of The Unicorn saw a squirming mass of interwoven tentacles resembling enormous snakes, immensely thick and long and tapering at their free ends to the size of a man's thumb. It was a foul sight, an obscene growth from the dark places of the world, where incessant hunger is the driving force. At one place, down near the bulge of the hull, appeared a staring gorgon face with great lidless eyes and a huge parrot beak that moved slightly, opening and shutting as though it had just crunched and swallowed a meal of warm flesh. ("Fire In The Galley Stove")

He was back in the water, not braving but frowning, synchronised swimming, not swimming but sinking, toward the godsquid he knew was there, tentacular fleshscape and the moon-sized eye that he never saw but knew, as if the core of the fucking planet was not searing metal but mollusc, as if what we fall toward when we fall, what the apple was heading for when Newton's head got in the way, was kraken.

hold of people’s minds and actually control them. View a corporate stronghold like the giant squid that attacked Captain Nemo’s Nautilus in Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, waiting for people to swim near so it could wrap its tentacles about them. Whenever people begin to think in certain ways, principalities can maneuver appropriate corporate strongholds into position to clamp about them and actually rob them of the freedom to think. While individual strongholds serve as lodgings for local ruling demons, corporate strongholds offer a home to what Paul referred to: Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. Ephesians 6:11–12, italics mine Corporate strongholds are wielded by principalities, rulers, demonic archangels that use them to imprison the minds and control the thoughts of entire peoples—nations, cities, denominations, local churches, political parties, even philanthropic groups. If you have ever asked, “How could principalities become world rulers of this present darkness?” the foremost answer lies here—by means of corporate strongholds. The function of a corporate stronghold is to imprison the minds of a people or group, to take away their freedom to think anything— including cold, hard facts and logic—contrary to the mindset of the stronghold. It hypnotizes whomever its spell overshadows, so that they cannot see portions of the Word of God (or even secular truths) that might set them free from its delusive grip. But their minds were hardened; for until this very day at the reading of the old covenant the same veil remains unlifted, because it is removed in Christ. But to this day whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their heart; but whenever a person turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. 2 Corinthians 3:14–16, italics mine That veil, to me, is a corporate stronghold of

The scent of the spicy squid is almost too much to handle!" First we start with bite-size chunks of squid sautéed in some olive oil and squid ink... Once the flavors have fully melded together, in goes a generous splash of white wine to flambé them! Then some cabbage and onion for sweetness! Tomatoes for a little zing! And finally... the secret ingredient! "What the heck? Look at that giant needle!" "You're not going to use that on the food, are you?!" We convinced a local restaurant to let us have their huge pile of leftover shrimp heads and seafood shells. By boiling it all down, we infuse all their savory umami goodness and richness into olive oil... ... making a big batch of Hayama's special red olive oil! Using a cooking injector, we inject a dose right into the yolk of a soft-boiled egg, aaand... PLOOP

That must be my surgeon coming aboard. You will like him; a reading man too, most amazing learned; a full-blown physician into the bargain, and my particular friend. But I must tell you this, Yorke; he is wealthy – ‘ In point of fact Captain Aubrey had little idea of his surgeon’s fortune, apart from knowing that he owned a good deal of hilly land in Catalonia with a tumbledown castle on it. But Stephen had done pretty well out of the Mauritius campaign; his manner of living was Spartan – one suit of clothes every five years and perhaps a couple of shirts – and apart from books he had no visible expenses at all. Jack was no Macchiavel, but he did know that to the rich it should be given; that capital possessed a mystical significance; that even the most perfectly disinterested respected it and its owner; and that although a naval surgeon was ordinarily a person of no great consequence, the same man moved into quite a different category the moment he was endowed with comfortable private means. In short, that whereas an ordinary surgeon, living on his pay, might not readily be indulged in room for exotic livestock, an imperfectly- preserved giant squid, and several tons of natural specimens, in a stranger’s ship, a wealthy natural philosopher might meet with more consideration; and Jack knew how Stephen prized the collection he had made during their arduous voyage. ‘ – he is wealthy, and he only comes with me because of the opportunities for natural philosophy; though he is a first-rate surgeon, too, and we are lucky to have him. But this voyage the opportunities have been prodigious, and he has turned the Leopard into a down-right Ark. Most of the Desolation creatures are stuffed or pickled but there are some from New Holland that skip and bound about: I hope you are not too crowded in La Fleche?

He broke off because of an ugly little sucking sound that ended in a tiny plop. In the hazy glow from the nobles’ quarter they saw a horridly supernatural sight: the Mouser’s bloody dagger poised above Gis’s punctured eye socket, supported only by a coiling white tentacle of the fog which had masked their attackers and which had now grown still more dense, as if it had sucked supreme nutriment—as indeed it had—from its dead servitors in their dying. Eldritch dreads woke in the Mouser and Fafhrd: dreads of the lightning that slays from the storm-cloud, of the giant sea-serpent that strikes from the sea, of the shadows that coalesce in the forest to suffocate the mighty man lost, of the black smoke-snake that comes questing from the wizard’s fire to strangle. All around them was a faint clattering of steel against cobble: other fog-tentacles were lifting the four dropped swords and Gis’s knife, while yet others were groping at that dead cutthroat’s belt for his undrawn weapons. It was as if some great ghost squid from the depths of the Inner Sea were arming itself for combat.

Still, the alien biologist might be excused for lumping together the whole biosphere - all the retroviruses, mantas, foraminifera, mongongo trees, tetanus bacilli, hydras, diatoms, stromatolite-builders, sea slugs, flatworms, gazelles lichens, corals, spirochetes, banyans, cave ticks, least bitters, caracaras, tufted puffins, ragweed pollen, wold spiders, horseshoe crabs, black mambas, monarch butterflies, whiptail lizards, trypanosomes, birds of paradise, electric eels, wild parsnips, arctic terns, fireflies, titis, chrysanthemums, hammerhead sharks, rotifers, wallabies, malarial plasmodia, tapirs, aphids, water moccasins, morning glories, whooping cranes, komodo dragons, periwinkles millipede larvae, angler fish, jellyfish lungfish, yeast, giant redwoods, tardigrades, archaebacteria, sea lilies, lilies of the valley, humans bonobos, squid and humpback whales - as, simply, Earthlife. The arcane distinctions among these swarming variations on a common theme may be left to specialists or graduate students. The pretensions and conceits of this or that species can readily be ignored. There are, after-all, so many worlds about which an extraterrestrial biologist must know. It will be enough if a few salient and generic characteristics of life on yet another obscure planet are noted for the cavernous recesses of the galactic archives.

There’s a giant homosexual squid downtown wearing a smoking jacket and monocle. He’s destroyed half the dock and the Mayfair Hotel!’ the cop said to Mr. Google.

The cockeyed squid has one regular-sized eye and one giant eye.

have all teddy bears in the world turn into actual bears or have all computer mice in the world turn into real mice? have the largest eyes in the world like a giant squid or be unable to blink your eyes like a fish?

have the largest eyes in the world like a giant squid or be unable to blink your eyes like a fish?

Do you believe that the giant squid’s eye can be as large as 26 inches (66 cm) in diameter, which is the size of a mountain bike wheel?

The distance record holder was the black and white Arctic tern, with its 22,000-mile yearly journey between polar ice caps, but in fall 2006, a team of researchers published news of sooty shearwaters captured in their New Zealand breeding burrows and outfitted with satellite tracking devices. Flying in a giant figure eight over the Pacific basin, they journey 39,000 miles a year. (The birds can also dive beneath the ocean’s surface, searching for squid, to 225 feet.) In 2007, an even more astonishing record was established by a bar-tailed godwit. Satellite tracking allowed researchers to follow a female shorebird who flew 7,145 miles nonstop from Alaska to New Zealand. In nine days, she crossed the vast Pacific, without a single meal, rest, or drink.

When one of my brothers was about nine, Father tasked him with convincing a Deep One to accept him as an apprentice.” “Deep One?” “A giant squid. Sort of.” “Oh.” “Michael tried and tried, but the Deep One wouldn’t go for it. My brother tried to explain the situation, but Father wouldn’t listen." (...) “He got a hot poker and burned out Michael’s eyes.” “What? Jesus! He blinded the kid?” “Yeah. Blinded him. Well—not the way you probably mean. Not permanently.” (...) "Father burned Michael’s eyes out. Every night, over and over. The rest of us had to attend him, had to watch. Each time took about twenty minutes—the first eye was quick, but after that Michael had to. To. To watch. One-eyed, you see. He’d watch as Father, um, Father, you know, heated the poker back up. The next morning Jennifer would grow them both back. Both eyes, you see. And then they’d do it again.” “What happened? How did it end?” Carolyn snarled. In the puddle of child’s blood Steve saw a flash of white teeth reflected. “Michael became motivated.” She spat the words out like someone vomiting up rotten food.

They took the snide grimaces and foul remarks of the day, the shoves in the hallway or laughs on the playground, and turned them into monsters and giant squids they could just as easily vanquish to darkened caves under the earth. They made the bullies’ scoffs destructible things.

A key part of their tool kit is that they call those who disagree with them racists, or the more potent term of art of our moment, “white supremacists.” That kind of charge has a way of sticking. To deny it is to confirm it, we are taught; once the charge is hurled, it’s like you’re caught in a giant squid’s tentacles.

Then she tossed me a small Tupperware container and said, “Spider.” “You think they’re with SPYDER?” I asked, confused. “No,” she said in her standard you’re-an-idiot tone. “Spider. Like arachnid. Use it.” She then grabbed one of the giant squid tentacles, lashed it out like a whip, and took the second government agent down at the knees. She was too busy to handle the third, though. I looked into the Tupperware container she’d given me and finally realized what she meant. There was a gigantic, hairy spider in it. Apparently, Erica had pilfered it from the insect show as we’d gone by.

What do you see when you look at me like that?” she asked. I didn’t have a good answer, so I went for honesty instead. “I don’t know,” I said. “Everything. That’s what I see—everything.” “You think I’m that huge, then?” she said. “I am woman, I contain multitudes. All shall look upon me and despair.” “Shall I compare thee to a giant squid,” I said. “Thou art more lovely and less tentacled.

Some credit this aggressive energy for the rapid innovation that characterises capitalism. Certainly there is truth to that. But it also has the tendency to become extremely violent. Every time capital bumps up against barriers to accumulation (say a saturated market, a minimum-wage law, or environmental protections), then like a giant vampire squid it writhes in a desperate attempt to whip those barriers out of the way and plunge its tentacles into new sources of growth.3 This is what is known as a ‘fix’.4 The enclosure movement was a fix. Colonisation was a fix. The Atlantic slave trade was a fix. The Opium Wars against China were a fix. The western expansion of the United States was a fix. Each one of these fixes – all of them violent – opened up new frontiers

Hi there, this is Captain Nemo of the Submarine Nautilus speaking. Over." "You're who?" "The guy in Twenty Zillion Leagues Under the Sea. You know. Great flick. Saw it when I was a kid in Seattle. Best part was the fight with the giant squid.

I’m heading to Earth for a meeting at the Hangout,” I say. “Uh-huh,” Grace says, not even turning around. “I’m not sure when I’ll be back,” I say. “Uh-huh,” she says again. “There’s a giant squid on your head,” I say. “Uh-huh,” she repeats.

Flame and Ochre stood sullenly behind the giant NightWing, glaring at Starflight. He hoped they had had to spend the night in the dungeon. Fatespeaker came bounding over to join them, followed more slowly by Viper and Squid. All around the dormitory, NightWing dragonets were poking their heads out of their blankets, watching. Fierceteeth looked openly envious; smoke rose from her snout and her tail twitched angrily. Morrowseer didn’t even look at the other NightWing dragonets. “Let’s go,” he ordered. His tail nearly knocked Starflight over as he turned and swept out of the room. “Where are we going?” Fatespeaker asked cheerfully. She seemed to have recovered from the news that either she or Starflight were slated for death. “To see if it’s worth spending any more time on you,” said Morrowseer. “Certain dragons think we should lock you all up until we sort

Carrying this aqueous conception to its breaking point, a wit had once remarked how wonderful it would be if the beak of a Giant Squid were to suddenly break through the rotten floorboards of my kitchen (followed, I assumed, by the tentacles, body, and enraged eyeballs rotating wildly in their sockets). I agreed that such a thing would indeed be wonderful.

Aah. This is a Causa ... ... one of Peruvian cuisine's most classic dishes." The word Causa means "mashed potatoes," and the dish is one with deep ties to Peruvian traditions. Various seafoods are sandwiched between layers of mashed potatoes and pressed together into a large roll. One could think of it as a giant potato salad sushi roll. Kobayashi minced the spear squid, blending it together with egg whites and onions in a food processor before seasoning it with lemon, mayonnaise and soy sauce. The resulting ground squid she formed into a patty and fried to make a light and fluffy squid burger. As the centerpiece of her dish, she sandwiched the patty between layers of mashed potatoes seasoned with bright yellow Ají Amarillo. *Ají Amarillo is a type of yellow chili pepper. A traditional seasoning in Peruvian cuisine, it has both spiciness and fruity sweetness.* She used Irish Cobbler potatoes- the pride of Hokkaido- to make the mashed potatoes. Their natural sweetness nicely emphasizes the body of the squid's flavor.

She pours boiling water into her cup, adds white foam from a jar. She doesn’t really want to drink this but she has to do something. To pass the time she begins to classify Elizabeth, a familiar exercise by now. If she had Elizabeth on a shelf, nicely ossified, the label would read: CLASS: Chondrichthyes; ORDER: Selachii; GENUS: Squalidae; SPECIES: Elizabetha. Today she classifies Elizabeth as a shark; on other days it’s a huge Jurassic toad, primitive, squat, venomous; on other days a cephalopod, a giant squid, soft and tentacled, with a hidden beak. Lesje knows scientific objectivity is a fraud. She’s read the stories of plunder and revenge, of evidence stolen from one scientist by another, of the great dinosaur hunters who bribed each other’s workmen and attacked each other’s reputations. She knows that passion for science is like any other passion. Nevertheless she wished scientific objectivity really did exist and that she could have some of it. Then she would be able to apply it to her own life. She would become philosophical and wise, she would be able to cope with Elizabeth in some way more adult, more dignified than this secret game, which is after all little better than juvenile name-calling.

Then my sexuality bitch-slapped my guilt. Then my guilt sucker-punched my sexuality. I mentally took a step back, leaving them to fight it out amongst themselves, like a giant squid and a sperm whale in the depths of the ocean.

Yesterday, I’d gotten chomped by a great white shark, strangled by a giant squid, and stung by a thousand irate moon jellies. I’d swallowed several gallons of seawater trying to hold my breath, and learned that I was no better at hand-to-hand combat thirty feet down than I was on dry land.

A rival has fallen. The giant squid, canny old campaigner, he of the battle-scarred armored mantle and seething tentacles. Neighbor. Competitor. Nuisance. Threat. He is gone. Dead and gone. His light extinguished. His signals snuffed.

We supped at our pints, imagining a whale fighting a giant squid, probably just as thousands of other men in pubs across the land were doing at that moment.

It was time to update Jerry, even though I had made no progress on the story. I dialed his number and it didn’t even ring. “This is Jerry.” “I have a problem.” “Well, hello to you, too.” “I’m serious.” “Congratulations. You haven’t been serious about anything in a very long time.” I often had these ridiculous back-and-forths with Jerry in which he would intentionally mock me or try to ruffle my feathers because he thought it inspired my writing. I was also ninety-nine percent sure that Jerry had undiagnosed ADD. Many days we ate lunch in the park together, sometimes Lincoln, sometimes Stanton. We’d eat our deli sandwiches and talk about life stuff. We would be having the most profound conversation about mortality or world hunger and Jerry would suddenly jerk his head around and say, “Oh man, look at that kite, it’s shaped like a giant squid!” I would never even attempt to take him to Millennium Park—forget about it. I know he’d just sit there and stare, mesmerized at those giant sculptures. His brain would go into overload and he would probably chant, “Big metal object, big metal object,” over and over. He did everything fast—he thought, ate, wrote, talked, even walked faster than the average person. His attention span didn’t last longer than a few seconds. His deadlines were sometimes unreasonable, and his brain rarely allowed for small talk in conversations, which made him a straight shooter. “Jerry, stop.

Yes, it must,” said Hermione, pointing at the title of his essay, “because we were asked how we’d deal with dementors, not ‘Dugbogs,’ and I don’t remember you changing your name to ‘Roonil Wazlib’ either.” “Ah no!” said Ron, staring horror-struck at the parchment. “Don’t say I’ll have to write the whole thing out again!” “It’s okay, we can fix it,” said Hermione, pulling the essay toward her and taking out her wand. “I love you, Hermione,” said Ron, sinking back in his chair, rubbing his eyes wearily. Hermione turned faintly pink, but merely said, “Don’t let Lavender hear you saying that.” “I won’t,” said Ron into his hands. “Or maybe I will . . . then she’ll ditch me . . .” “Why don’t you ditch her if you want to finish it?” asked Harry. “You haven’t ever chucked anyone, have you?” said Ron. “You and Cho just —” “Sort of fell apart, yeah,” said Harry. “Wish that would happen with me and Lavender,” said Ron gloomily, watching Hermione silently tapping each of his misspelled words with the end of her wand, so that they corrected themselves on the page. “But the more I hint I want to finish it, the tighter she holds on. It’s like going out with the giant squid.” “There,” said Hermione, some twenty minutes later,