Long ago, when I had my Merlyn to help, he tried to teach me to think. He knew he would have to leave in the end, so he forced me to think for myself… - T. H. White

The nice thing about the queen of Flanders' daughter, had been that she did not laugh at him. A lot of people laughed at you when you went after the Questing Beast - and never caught it - but Piggy never laughed. She seemed to understand at once how interesting it was, and made several sensible suggestions about the way to trap it. Naturally, one did not pretend to be clever or anything, but it was nice not to be laughed at. One was doing one's best.

He (the Professor) was a failure but did his best to hide it. One of his failings was that he could barely write, except in a twelfth century hand, in Latin, with abbreviations.

when a moral sense begins to rot it is worse than when you had none.