famous quotes by jk rowling
Famous Quotes by J.K. Rowling
Celebrated author J.K. Rowling is rarely known to give interviews; she lets her work do most of the talking. But when she does say something, rest assured that the world sits up and takes notice. Buzzle brings you the very best of J.K. Rowling - her quotes and musings.
This is what J.K. Rowling had to say to all the grieving fans at the premiere of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2, the final installment of the series:
"Never say never. It is my baby and if I want to bring it out to play again, I will."
With that, hope reigned for the millions of Pottermaniacs. 7 phenomenal novels and 8 equally successful movies later, her fans were hungry for more, and hung on to Rowling's statement for dear life. We do know how that turned out (Robert Galbraith and all), but it just goes to prove the impact of Rowling's words; people do hang on to every word of hers.
Ms Rowling's life has been nothing short of miraculous, really, and it would be utterly fascinating to get our hands on her autobiography. But before that happens, we only have a few of her quotes in the form of snippets, extracted from the few interviews she's given over the course of the last 15-odd years.
J.K. Rowling's Famous Quotes
On writing...
"My readers have to work with me to create the experience. They have to bring their imaginations to the story. No one sees a book in the same way, no one sees the characters the same way. As a reader you imagine them in your own mind. So, together, as author and reader, we have both created the story."
"I'll be writing until I can't write anymore. It's a compulsion with me. I love writing."
"Be ruthless about protecting writing days, i.e., do not cave in to endless requests to have "essential" and "long overdue" meetings on those days. The funny thing is that, although writing has been my actual job for several years now, I still seem to have to fight for time in which to do it. Some people do not seem to grasp that I still have to sit down in peace and write the books, apparently believing that they pop up like mushrooms without my connivance. I must therefore guard the time allotted to writing as a Hungarian Horntail guards its firstborn egg."
On the pressures of looking good
"Fat' is usually the first insult a girl throws at another girl when she wants to hurt her.
I mean, is 'fat' really the worst thing a human being can be? Is 'fat' worse than 'vindictive', 'jealous', 'shallow', 'vain', 'boring' or 'cruel'? Not to me; but then, you might retort, what do I know about the pressure to be skinny? I'm not in the business of being judged on my looks, what with being a writer and earning my living by using my brain..."
"I found it very difficult when I first became well-known to read criticism of how I looked: how messy my hair was ... you can go one of two ways: you can be the person I probably admire more, and say 'well I don't care, I will continue not to bother to brush my hair,' or you can be a weak-willed person like me and think 'Oh, I'd better get my act together', maybe I do need to tie my hair back and tidy myself up a bit."
"It must be so nice to be a man and just think 'which of my three suits will I wear today?'"
On the Harry Potter Series
"Whether you come back by page or by the big screen, Hogwarts will always be there to welcome you home."
"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!"
"It's a bittersweet ending. But that's perfect, because that is what happens to our heroes. We're human. I kept arguing that 'love is the most important force, love is the most important force.' So I wanted to show him loving. Sometimes it's dramatic: it means you lay down your life. But sometimes it means making sure someone's trunk is packed and hoping they'll be O.K. at school."
On Ron and Hermione
"I wrote the Hermione-Ron relationship as a form of wish fulfillment. That's how it was conceived, really.
"For reasons that have very little to do with literature and far more to do with me clinging to the plot as I first imagined it, Hermione ended up with Ron.
"I know, I'm sorry, I can hear the rage and fury it might cause some fans, but if I'm absolutely honest, distance has given me perspective on that. It was a choice I made for very personal reasons, not for reasons of credibility."
"Just like her creator, she has a real weakness for a funny man. These uptight girls, they do like them funny ... It's such a relief from being so intense yourself - you need someone who takes life, or appears to take life, a little more lightheartedly."
"In my absolute heart of hearts of hearts―although I did seriously consider killing ... Ron."
"Maybe she and Ron will be alright with a bit of counselling, you know. I wonder what happens at wizard marriage counselling? They'll probably be fine. He needs to work on his self-esteem issues and she needs to work on being a little less critical ..."
Rowling's musings
"It's so difficult to describe depression to someone who's never been there, because it's not sadness. I know sadness. Sadness is to cry and to feel. But it's that cold absence of feeling- that really hollowed-out feeling."
"I mean, you could claim that anything's real if the only basis for believing in it is that nobody's proved it doesn't exist!"
"We have to remember, sometimes the most important history is the history we're making today."
"It is impossible to live without failing at something. Unless you've lived so cautiously that you might as well not lived at all. In which case, you fail by default."
"Personal happiness lies in knowing that life is not a checklist of acquisition. Your qualifications are not your life."
"Love is the strongest power there is."
On being a single parent
"There was still no escaping the single parent tag; it followed me to financial stability and fame just as it had clung to me in poverty and obscurity. I became Single Parent Writes Award-Winning Children's Book/Earns Record American Advance/Gets Film Deal. One of the first journalists to interview me asked me whether I hadn't felt I ought to be out looking for a job rather than 'sitting at home writing a novel.' By some miracle I resisted the almost overwhelming temptation to punch him and subsequently decided to channel my frustration a little more positively by becoming a Patron of what was then called the National Council for One Parent Families (now Gingerbread)."
"In the meantime, I would say to any single parent currently feeling the weight of stereotype or stigmatization that I am prouder of my years as a single mother than of any other part of my life. Yes, I got off benefits and wrote the first four Harry Potter books as a single mother, but nothing makes me prouder than what Jessica told me recently about the first five years of her life: 'I never knew we were poor. I just remember being happy.'"
On Robert Galbraith
"I was yearning to go back to the beginning of a writing career in this new genre, to work without hype or expectation and to receive totally unvarnished feedback. It was a fantastic experience and I only wish it could have gone on a little longer."
"I successfully channeled my inner bloke!"
On The Casual Vacancy
"I think that I have had a very odd life and that I've moved through, economically speaking, I've been through virtually every variation you can have. It left me with me with an abiding, several abiding feelings about how we talk about the poor, how we discuss them, what it feels like to be poor, which can be a humiliating experience in ways well beyond those you may imagine if you've never been in that situation. And all of that experience, though this is not a biography or memoir, could be used in this book."
"People have sex in the book, but they don't enjoy it,"
"I'm interested in that drive, that rush to judgment, that is so prevalent in our society," Rowling says. "We all know that pleasurable rush that comes from condemning, and in the short term it's quite a satisfying thing to do, isn't it?"
"We're a phenomenally snobby society, and it's such a rich seam. The middle class is so funny, it's the class I know best, and it's the class where you find the most pretension, so that's what makes the middle classes so funny."
"In the end you reach a very healthy point, I think, where you disconnect. You really do. And I am there. And it's been glorious for five years, it's been thrilling, the sheer freedom. I am the freest author in the world. I can do whatever the hell I like. My bills are paid - we all know I can pay my bills - I was under contract to no one, and the feeling of having all of these characters in my head and knowing that no one else knew a damned thing about them was amazing. It was just blissful. Pagford was mine, just mine, for five years. I loved that. I wrote this novel as exactly what I wanted to write. And I loved it."
On the sudden rise to fame and being rich
"You don't expect the kind of problems it brings with it. I am so grateful for what happened that this should not be taken in any way as a whine, but you don't expect the pressure of it, in the sense of being bombarded by requests. I felt that I had to solve everyone's problems. I was hit by this tsunami of demands. I felt overwhelmed. And I was really worried that I would mess up."
"I just hate meetings. Though it's true that once you've made a lot of money people around you might be full of ideas about ways to make lots more money and might be disappointed that you don't want to seize every opportunity to do so."