How we cite our quotes: (chapter.paragraph)
Quote #1
"Harry Potter come and live here!"
"It's the best place for him," said Dumbledore firmly. "His aunt and uncle will be able to explain everything to him when he's older. I've written them a letter." (1.81-82)
It's almost touching that Dumbledore would be so naive as to think that a "letter" from him would smooth things over with the Dursleys and make everything OK. As we find out by chapter two, the last thing their house feels like, to Harry, is a home. Minor spoiler: later on in the series, we learn that Dumbledore had another important reason why Harry had to spend time with the Dursleys and why it really was "the best place." But that's all we're going to say for now.
Quote #2
The room held no sign that another boy lived in the house, too. (2.1)
Yuck. The Dursleys are just icky. They've filled their house with pictures of and references to their favorite son Dudley, but they won't even let Harry have a single picture of his parents. The Dursleys don't make their home welcoming to their poor orphaned nephew in any way.
Quote #3
Harry was used to spiders, because the cupboard under the stairs was full of them, and that was where he slept.
When he was dressed he went down the hall into the kitchen. The table was almost hidden beneath all Dudley's birthday presents. (2.13-14)
These two paragraphs show how different Harry and Dudley's positions in the house are. Harry doesn't even have a bedroom. He sleeps in a "cupboard" "under the stairs" – we can only imagine how dark and dismal it is. Think of how many spiders he must have encountered in order to get "used to" them. In contrast, Dudley gets so much attention that there's barely enough room in the house for all his birthday presents. (Compare this birthday to Harry's pivotal eleventh non-celebration, too.)