Best J. K. Rowling Quotes

I had an American journalist say to me, "Is it true you wrote the whole of the first novel on napkins?" I was tempted to say, "On teabags, I used to save them."

The consequences of our actions are so complicated, so diverse, that predicting the future is a very difficult business indeed.

I gave my hero a talent I'd love to have. Who wouldn't want to fly?

Curiosity is not a sin.... But we should exercise caution with our curiosity... yes, indeed.

You can exist without your soul, you know, as long as your brain and heart are still working. But you'll have no sense of self anymore, no memory, no....anything. There's no chance at all of recovery. You'll just exist. As an empty shell.

Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.

To the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure.

Indeed, your failure to understand that there are things much worse than death has always been your greatest weakness.

You sort of start thinking anything's possible if you've got enough nerve.

No, I think I'll just go down and have some pudding and wait for it all to turn up.... It always does in the end.

What's comin' will come and we'll meet it when it does.

Dark and difficult times lie ahead. Soon we must all face the choice between what is right and what is easy.

Remember, if the time should come when you have to make a choice between what is right, and what is easy, remember what happened to a boy who was good, and kind, and brave, because he strayed across the path of Lord Voldemort.

We are only as strong as we are united, as weak as we are divided. Lord Voldemort's gift for spreading discord and enmity is very great. We can fight it only by showing an equally strong bond of friendship and trust. Differences of habit and language are nothing at all if our aims are identical and our hearts are open.

You place too much importance... on the so-called purity of blood! You fail to recognize that it matters not what someone is born, but what they grow to be!

Nothing like a nighttime stroll to give you ideas.

Harry, suffering like this proves you are still a man! This pain is part of being human … the fact that you can feel pain like this is your greatest strength.

Indifference and neglect often do much more damage than outright dislike ...We wizards have mistreated and abused our fellows for too long, and we are now reaping our reward.

Never trust anything that can think for itself if you can't see where it keeps its brain.

There are some things you can't share without ending up liking each other.

People find it far easier to forgive others for being wrong than being right.

Age is foolish and forgetful when it underestimates youth.

Horace likes his comfort. He also likes the company of the famous, the successful and the powerful. He enjoys the feeling that he influences these people. He has never wanted to occupy the throne himself. He prefers the backseat; there is more room to spread out.

It is the unknown we fear when we look upon death and darkness, nothing more.

We must try not to sink beneath our anguish, Harry, but battle on.

Kreacher is what he has been made by wizards, Harry. Yes, he is to be pitied. His existence has been as miserable as your friend Dobby's. He was forced to do Sirius's bidding, because Sirius was the last of the family to which he was enslaved, but he felt no true loyalty to him. And whatever Kreacher's faults, it must be admitted that Sirius did nothing to make Kreacher's lot easier.

You think the dead we loved ever truly leave us? You think that we don't recall them more clearly than ever in times of great trouble? Your father is alive in you, Harry, and shows himself plainly when you have need of him.

There is no good or evil: only power and those too weak to seek it.

It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends.

It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live.

The truth is a beautiful and terrible thing, and should therefore be treated with caution.

If you want to know what a man's like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.

I sometimes find, and I am sure you know the feeling, that I simply have too many thoughts and memories crammed into my mind.... At these times... I use the Pensieve. One simply siphons the excess thoughts from one's mind, pours them into the basin, and examines them at one's leisure.

If you're holding out for universal popularity, I'm afraid you will be in this cabin for a very long time.

Differences of habit and language are nothing at all if our aims are identical and our hearts are open.

It is my belief... that the truth is generally preferable to lies.

Bigotry is probably the thing I detest most.

Numbing the pain for a while will make it worse when you finally feel it.

The mind is not a book, to be opened at will and examined at leisure. Thoughts are not etched on the inside of skulls, to be perused by an invader. The mind is a complex and many-layered thing.

Youth cannot know how age thinks and feels. But old men are guilty if they forget what it was to be young.

It is true, however, that those who have mastered Legilimency are able, under certain conditions, to delve into the minds of their victims and to interpret their findings correctly....

You dare use my own spells against me, Potter? It was I who invented them - I, the Half-Blood Prince! And you'd turn my inventions on me, like your filthy father, would you? I don't think so . . . no.

When you have seen as much of life as I have, you will not underestimate the power of obsessive love.

Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potion-making. As there is little foolish wand-waving here, many of you will hardly believe this is magic. I don't expect you will really understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses -- I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even stopper death -- if you aren't as big a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach.

As much money and life as you could want! The two things most human beings would choose above all - the trouble is, humans do have a knack of choosing precisely those things that are worst for them.

Fear of a name increases fear of the thing itself.