J. K. Rowling
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.Collection: Knowledge
To the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure.Collection: Great
I imagined being a famous writer would be like being like Jane Austen.Collection: Famous
I just write what I wanted to write. I write what amuses me. It's totally for myself. I never in my wildest dreams expected this popularity.Collection: Dreams
Death obsesses me, yes it does. I can't really understand why it doesn't obsess everyone - I think it does really, I'm just a little more out about it.Collection: Death
You lose your individuality a huge amount when you have no money, and I certainly had that experience.Collection: Money
Youth cannot know how age thinks and feels. But old men are guilty if they forget what it was to be young.Collection: Age
Death is just life's next big adventure.Collection: Death
It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live.Collection: Dreams
Fear of a name increases fear of the thing itself.Collection: Fear
The best of us must sometimes eat our words.Collection: Best
I was set free because my greatest fear had been realized, and I still had a daughter who I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became a solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.Collection: Fear
Every now and then I read a poem that does touch something in me, but I never turn to poetry for solace or pleasure in the way that I throw myself into prose.Collection: Poetry
The fame thing is interesting because I never wanted to be famous, and I never dreamt I would be famous.Collection: Famous
The truth. It is a beautiful and terrible thing, and must therefore be treated with great caution.Collection: Great
If you want to see the true measure of a man, watch how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.Collection: Equality
It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all, in which case you have failed by default.Collection: Failure
Whether you come back by page or by the big screen, Hogwarts will always be there to welcome you home.Collection: Home
I would like to be remembered as someone who did the best she could with the talent she had.Collection: Best
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.Collection: Imagination
However my parents - both of whom came from impoverished backgrounds and neither of whom had been to college, took the view that my overactive imagination was an amusing quirk that would never pay a mortgage or secure a pension.Collection: Imagination
'Harry Potter' gave me back self respect. Harry gave me a job to do that I loved more than anything else.Collection: Respect
Failure means a stripping away of the inessential.Collection: Failure
Talent and intelligence never yet inoculated anyone against the caprice of the fates.Collection: Intelligence
It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends.Collection: Courage
Why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me.Collection: Failure
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.Collection: Fear
Never trust anything that can think for itself if you can't see where it keeps its brain.Collection: Trust
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.Collection: Science
I think you're working and learning until you die.Collection: Learning
It is our choices... that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.
What's coming will come and we'll just have to meet it when it does.
The internet has been a boon and a curse for teenagers.
Indifference and neglect often do much more damage than outright dislike.
I sometimes have a tendency to walk on the dark side.
Anything's possible if you've got enough nerve.
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.
The most important thing is to read as much as you can, like I did. It will give you an understanding of what makes good writing and it will enlarge your vocabulary.
You sort of start thinking anything's possible if you've got enough nerve.
Humans have a knack for choosing precisely the things that are worst for them.
There was a point where I really felt I had 'penniless divorcee lone parent' tattooed on my head.
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.
The moment you are old enough to take the wheel, responsibility lies with you.
When people are very damaged, they can often meet the world with a kind of defiance.
Bigotry is probably the thing I detest most.
On the subject of literary genres, I've always felt that my response to poetry is inadequate. I'd love to be the kind of person that drifts off into the garden with a slim volume of Elizabethan verse or a sheaf of haikus, but my passion is story.
It is perfectly possible to live a very moral life without a belief in God, and I think it's perfectly possible to live a life peppered with ill-doing and believe in God.
I'm a writer, and I will write what I want to write.
I loved writing for kids, I loved talking to children about what I'd written, I don't want to leave that behind.
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.