J. K. Rowling, Quotes

The best way to get children excited about reading is to read to them from the beginning of their lives.

Seven years after becoming a lone parent, I feel qualified to look anyone in the eye and say that people bringing up children single-handedly deserve, not condemnation, but congratulation.

I have to write the story I want to write. I never wrote them with a focus group of 8-year-olds in mind. I have to continue telling the story the way I want to tell it.

The idea that we could have a child who escapes from the confines of the adult world and goes somewhere where he has power, both literally and metaphorically, really appealed to me.

No, there's no University for Wizards. At the moment I'm only planning to write seven Harry Potter books. I won't say "never," but I have no plans to write an eighth book.

I had the idea of a boy who was a wizard and didn't yet know what he was. I never sat down and wondered, "What shall I write about next?". It just came, fully formed.

Gilderoy Lockhart is also a lot like someone I once knew, but I don't think I'd better elaborate!

I loved writing Dumbledore and he is the epitome of goodness.

At fourteen, you really do start realising that the world is not a safe and protected place or not always.

I remember the first time I heard a teenager say 'LOL.' Just what? But it means 'laugh.' Why don't you just laugh? What are you doing?

I really don't believe in magic.

Honestly, I think we should be delighted people still want to read, be it on a Kindle or a Nook or whatever the latest device is.

The poor are discussed as this homogeneous mash, like porridge. The idea that they might be individuals, and be where they are for very different, diverse reasons, again seems to escape some people.

I'm opposed to fundamentalism in any form.

I always felt an outsider.

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

There was a point where I really felt I had 'penniless divorcee lone parent' tattooed on my head.

We do stigmatise teens a lot and see them as scary and alien.

I think I've really exhausted the magical. It was a lot of fun, but I've put it behind me for the time being.

I've been asked this question so many times, do you feel you need to write a book for adults? No, I don't need to write a book for adults.

The first story I finished was when I was six years old.

You lose your individuality a huge amount when you have no money, and I certainly had that experience.

But I was the most unashamed lone parent you were ever going to meet.

I am not a particularly thick-skinned person.

I am the freest author in the world.

I did not set out to convert anyone to Christianity.

I don't need to publish to make a living.

I don't read 'chick lit,' fantasy or science fiction but I'll give any book a chance if it's lying there and I've got half an hour to kill.

I just hate meetings.

I knew no one who'd ever been in the public eye.

I've laid my friends bare.

I've never managed to keep a journal longer than two weeks.

If ever I expected to come face to face with an angry Christian fundamentalist, it wasn't in FAO Schwarz.

If you love something - and there are things that I love - you do want more and more and more of it, but that's not the way to produce good work.

In a novel you have to resist the urge to tell everything.

Some of the furor that surrounded a Harry Potter publication was fun.

The thing about fantasy - there are certain things you just don't do in fantasy.

Are you insane? Of course I want to leave the Dursleys! Have you got a house? When can I move in?

The sky outside the window was changing rapidly from deep, velvety blue to cold, steely gray and then, slowly, to pink shot with gold.

Extraordinary imagination, especially in a witch world. Also friendship.

It's lucky it's dark. I haven't blushed so much since Madam Pomfrey told me she liked my new earmuffs.

You'd think I walk around with my eyes shut, banging off the walls.

So why in the name of Merlin’s saggy left —” “Don’t talk to your mother like that.

P.S. I enjoy acid pops.

Neither can live while the other survives, and one of us is about to leave for good.

Gotta bone ter pick with yeh. I've heard you've bin givin' out signed photos. How come I haven't got one?

Dawn was breaking over the horizon, shell pink and faintly gold.

I knew I could do it all this time,” said Harry, “Because I'd already done it... does that make sense?

Perhaps just one more, Master Harry, for luck?

Well, you're expelling us aren't you?" said Ron. "Not today, Mr. Weasley." Snape looked as though Christmas had been canceled.