J. K. Rowling

What's interesting about the wizarding world is when you take physical strength out of the equation, a woman can do magic just as powerfully as a man can do magic. A woman can fight just the same as a man.

I've only suffered writer's block badly once, and that was during the writing of Chamber of Secrets. I had my first burst of publicity about the first book and it paralysed me. I was scared the second book wouldn't measure up, but I got through it!

I believe in hard work and luck, and that the first often leads to the second

But in some ways I think it's braver to do it like this. And, to an extent, you know what? The worst that can happen is that everyone says, 'Well, that was dreadful, she should have stuck to writing for kids' and I can take that. So, yeah, I'll put it out there, and if everyone says, 'Well, that's shockingly bad – back to wizards with you', then obviously I won't be throwing a party. But I will live. I will live.

I think you have a moral responsibility when you've been given far more than you need, to do wise things with it and give intelligently.

Like a tongue on frozen steel, like flesh in flame —

I have never been remotely ashamed of having been depressed. Never. What's to be ashamed of? I went through a really rough time and I am quite proud that I got out of that.

The fame thing is interesting because I never wanted to be famous, and I never dreamt I would be famous.

The truth. It is a beautiful and terrible thing, and must therefore be treated with great caution.

Indifference and neglect often do much more damage than outright dislike.

That wand’s more trouble than it’s worth,” said Harry. “And quite honestly,” he turned away from the painted portraits, thinking now only of the four-poster bed lying waiting for him in Gryffindor Tower, and wondering whether Kreacher might bring him a sandwich there, “I’ve had enough trouble for a lifetime.

I pay a lot of tax, and I feel, one of the reasons I stay and pay why I'm not based in Monaco... I think my country helped me.

I was convinced that the only thing I wanted to do ever - was write novels.

And the idea of just wandering off to a cafe with a notebook and writing and seeing where that takes me for awhile is just bliss.

I really don't believe in magic.

Humans have a knack for choosing precisely the things that are worst for them.

The internet has been a boon and a curse for teenagers.

Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and therefore the fount of all invention and innovation. In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is the power to that enables us to empathize with humans whose experiences we have never shared.

Poverty entails fear and stress and sometimes depression. It meets a thousand petty humiliations and hardships. Climbing out of poverty by your own efforts that is something on which to pride yourself but poverty itself is romanticized by fools.

People ask me if there are going to be stories of Harry Potter as an adult. Frankly, if I wanted to, I could keep writing stories until Harry is a senior citizen, but I don't know how many people would actually want to read about a 65 year old Harry still at Hogwarts playing bingo with Ron and Hermione.

His priority did not seem to be to teach them what he knew, but rather to impress upon them that nothing, not even... knowledge, was foolproof.