J.K. Rowling Quotes

J.K. Rowling shares blunt, hopeful reflections on belief, writing, and fear.

42 quotes

The wizards represent all that the true 'muggle' most fears: They are plainly outcasts and comfortable with being so. Nothing is more unnerving to the truly conventional than the unashamed misfit!

#1
I absolutely did not start writing these books to encourage any child into witchcraft... I'm laughing slightly because to me, the idea is absurd. I have met thousands of children now, and not even one time has a child come up to me and said, 'Ms. Rowling, I'm so glad I've read these books because now I want to be a witch.' They see it for what it is... It is a fantasy world and they understand that completely.

#2
I don't believe in magic, either.

#3
I bumped into a woman I hadn't seen for nearly three years. The first thing she said to me? 'You've lost a lot of weight since the last time I saw you!' 'Well,' I said, slightly nonplussed, 'the last time you saw me I'd just had a baby.' What I felt like saying was, 'I've produced my third child and my sixth novel since I last saw you. Aren't either of those things more important, more interesting, than my size?' But no - my waist looked smaller! Forget the kid and the book: finally, something to celebrate!

#4
I've never set out to teach anyone anything. It's been more of an expression of my views and feelings than sitting down and deciding 'What is today's message?' And I do think that, although I never, again, sat down consciously and thought about this, I do think judging, even for my own daughter, that children respond to that than to 'thought for the day.'

#5
If you need to tell your readers something...there are only two characters that you can put it convincingly into their dialogue. One is Hermione, the other is Dumbledore. In both cases you accept, it's plausible that they have, well Dumbledore knows pretty much everything anyway, but that Hermione has read it somewhere. So, she's handy.

#6
I've given you more than I've given anyone else which I probably shouldn't probably say on - on screen, or they'll kidnap and torture him, and we need him.

#7
It would be one way to kill off the merchandising.

#8
And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.

#9
We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better.

#10
I think I'd most like to spend a day with Harry. I'd take him out for a meal and apologize for everything I've put him through.

#11
Personally, If I were Harry Potter I think I would go and hide somewhere, but that's because I know what's coming!

#12
It is important to remember that we all have magic inside us.

#13
Journalists banging on my front door! Don't like that at all.

#14
“Draco Dormiens Nunquam Titillandus [ never tickle a sleeping dragon ]”
“An intense cold swept over them all. Harry felt his own breath catch in his chest. The cold went deeper than his skin. It was inside his chest, it was inside his very heart. . . . Harry’s eyes rolled up into his head. He couldn’t see. He was drowning in cold. There was a rushing in his ears as though of water. He was being dragged downward, the roaring growing louder . . . And then, from far away, he heard screaming, terrible, terrified, pleading screams. He wanted to help whoever it was, he tried to move his arms, but couldn’t . . . a thick white fog was swirling around him, inside him —”
“He wore round glasses held together with a lot of Sellotape because of all the times Dudley had punched him on the nose.”
“Sybill Trelawney, Divination teacher,’” Harry read. “How’re we supposed to get up there?” As though in answer to his question, the trapdoor suddenly opened, and a silvery ladder descended right at Harry’s feet. Everyone got quiet. “After you,” said Ron, grinning, so Harry climbed the ladder first.”
“Harry et Ron furent enchantés d’entendre Hagrid qualifier Rusard de « vieille ganache ».”
“Well, I can certainly see why we’re trying to keep them alive,” said Malfoy sarcastically. “Who wouldn’t want pets that can burn, sting, and bite all at once?” “Just because they’re not very pretty, it doesn’t mean they’re not useful,” Hermione snapped. “Dragon blood’s amazingly magical, but you wouldn’t want a dragon for a pet, would you?”
“There was no waking from this nightmare, no comforting whisper in the dark that he was safe really, that it was all in his imagination; the last and greatest of his protectors had died, and he was more alone than he had ever been.”
“Well, I reckon you should --" Ron began, but he was interrupted by the Fat Lady, who had been watching them sleepily and now burst out, "Are you going to give me the password or will I have to say awake all night waiting for you to finish your conversation?”
“Psst!” said a voice, and he looked around to see a wispy little witch and the ferrety wizard from Magical Maintenance gesturing to him from over beside the statue. Harry hastened to join them. “You got in all right, then?” Hermione whispered to Harry. “No, he’s still stuck in the bog,” said Ron. “Oh, very funny…”
“You're scary when you're in a good mood, you know that ?”
“He was in such a hurry to mutilate his own soul, he never paused to understand the incomparable power of a soul that is untarnished and whole.”
“No confíes en cosas que tengan la capacidad de pensar pero de las cuales no sepas dónde tienen el cerebro.”
“How did you know it was me?” she asked. “My dear Professor, I’ve never seen a cat sit so stiffly.” “You’d be stiff if you’d been sitting on a brick wall all day,” said Professor McGonagall.”
“What did he do to you, Diddy?’ Aunt Petunia said in a quavering voice, now sponging sick from the front of Dudley’s leather jacket. ‘Was it – was it you-know-what, darling? Did he use – his thing?’ Slowly, tremulously, Dudley nodded.”
“As Amycus spun around, Harry shouted, “ Crucio! ” The Death Eater was lifted off his feet. He writhed through the air like a drowning man, thrashing and howling in pain, and then, with a crunch and a shattering of glass, he smashed into the front of a bookcase and crumpled, insensible, to the floor. “I see what Bellatrix meant,” said Harry, the blood thundering through his brain, “you need to really mean it.”
“It was the difference between being dragged into the arena to face a battle to the death and walking into the arena with your head held high.”
“Well, the vault we need to get into isn’t empty, and I’m guessing its protection will be pretty powerful,” said Harry. “It belongs to the Lestranges.”
“The snake jabbed its tail at a little sign next to the glass. Harry peered at it. Boa Constrictor, Brazil.”
“Danger lies before you, while safety lies behind, Two of us will help you, whichever you would find, One among us seven will let you move ahead, Another will transport the drinker back instead, Two among our number hold only nettle wine, Three of us are killers, waiting hidden in line. Choose, unless you wish to stay here forevermore, To help you in your choice, we give you these clues four: First, however slyly the poison tries to hide You will always find some on nettle wine’s left side; Second, different are those who stand at either end, But if you would move onward, neither is your friend; Third, as you see clearly, all are different size, Neither dwarf nor giant holds death in their insides; Fourth, the second left and the second on the right Are twins once you taste them, though different at first sight.”
“Oh, I'm going to kill Mundungus Fletcher!”
“Harry Potter asks if he can help Dobby . . . Dobby has heard of your greatness, sir, but of your goodness, Dobby never knew.”
“Yeh always wait fer the Hippogriff ter make the first move,' Hagrid continued. 'It's polite, see? Yeh walk towards him, and yeh bow, an' yeh wait. If he bows back, yeh're allowed to touch him. If he doesn' bow, then get away from him sharpish, 'cause those talons hurt.”
“Astoria always knew that she was not destined for old age. She wanted me to have somebody when she left, because...it is exceptionally lonely, being Draco Malfoy. I will always be suspected. There is no escaping the past. I never realized, though, that by hiding him away from this gossiping, judgmental world, I ensured that my son would emerge shrouded in worse suspicion than I ever endured.”
“There was a faint note of pride in his voice that Harry had rarely heard there before. “He thought I’d like this.”
“Its okay Ginny. Don't be upset. We'll send you a toilet seat or something. Fred and George said to Ginny”
“So," said Wood, at long last, jerking Harry from a wistful fantasy about what he could be eating for breakfast at this very moment up at the castle, "is that clear? Any questions?" "I've got a question, Oliver," said George, who had woken with a start. "Why couldn't you have told us yesterday when we were awake?”
“You don't seek power or popularity. You simply ask, is the thing right in itself? If it is, then I must do it, no matter the cost.”
“Hello, Minister!” bellowed Percy, sending a neat jinx straight at Thicknesse, who dropped his wand and clawed at the front of his robes, apparently in awful discomfort. “Did I mention I’m resigning?” “You’re joking, Perce!” shouted Fred as the Death Eater he was battling collapsed under the weight of three separate Stunning Spells. Thicknesse had fallen to the ground with tiny spikes erupting all over him; he seemed to be turning into some form of sea urchin. Fred looked at Percy with glee. “You actually are joking, Perce…I don’t think I’ve heard you joke since you were--”