J. K. Rowling

“Failure means a stripping away of the inessential.”

“No, there is literally nothing on the business side that I wouldn't sacrifice in a heartbeat to have an extra couple of hours' writing. Nothing.”

“I would like to be remembered as someone who did the best she could with the talent she had.”

“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.”

“Rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.”

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

“The best of us must sometimes eat our words.”

“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.”

“Death is just life's next big adventure.”

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

“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.”

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

“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.”

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

“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.”

“The fame thing is interesting because I never wanted to be famous, and I never dreamt I would be famous.”

“I imagined being a famous writer would be like being like Jane Austen.”

“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.”

“Fear of a name increases fear of the thing itself.”

“Hearing voices no one else can hear isn't a good sign, even in the wizarding world.”

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

“The truth. It is a beautiful and terrible thing, and must therefore be treated with great caution.”

“I received free health care.”

“Whether you come back by page or by the big screen, Hogwarts will always be there to welcome you home.”