J. K. Rowling quotes: thoughts on success from the British novelist who wrote Harry Potter, Joanne Rowling.
“We have to choose between what is right, and what is easy.”
“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. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged.”
“As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.”
“The world is full of wonderful things you haven’t seen yet. Don’t ever give up on the chance of seeing them.”
“Poverty entails fear, and stress, and sometimes depression; it means a thousand petty humiliations and hardships. Climbing out of poverty by your own efforts, that is indeed something on which to pride yourself, but poverty itself is romanticized only by fools.”
“The stories we love best do live in us forever.”
“The true dilemmas of childhood are the dilemmas of the whole of life: those of belonging and betrayal, the power of the group and the courage it takes to be an individual, of love and loss, and learning what it is to be a human being, let alone a good, brave, or honest one.”
“There’s always room for a story that can transport people to another place.”
“Always use the proper names for things. Fear of a name increases fear of the thing itself.”
“Wherever I am, if I’ve got a book with me, I have a place I can go and be happy.”
“Humans have a knack of choosing precisely those things that are worst for them.”
“The consequences of our actions are always so complicated, so diverse, that predicting the future is a very difficult business indeed.”
“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.”
“There are all kinds of courage. It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends.”
“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 fail by default.”
“It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.”
“The Potter books, in general, are a prolonged argument for tolerance, a prolonged plea for an end to bigotry. And I think it’s one of the reasons that some people don’t like the books, but I think that it’s a very healthy message to pass on to younger people that you should question authority and you should not assume that the establishment or the press tells you all of the truth.”
“Greatness inspires envy, envy engenders spite, and spite spawns lies.”
“We’ve all got both light and dark inside us. What matters is the part we choose to act on. That’s who we really are.”
“Unlike any other creature on this planet, humans can learn and understand, without having experienced. They can think themselves into other people’s places.”
“Whatever money you might have, self-worth really lies in finding out what you do best.”
“If you choose to use your status and influence to raise your voice on behalf of those who have no voice; if you choose to identify not only with the powerful, but with the powerless; if you retain the ability to imagine yourself into the lives of those who do not have your advantages, then it will not only be your proud families who celebrate your existence, but thousands and millions of people whose reality you have helped transform for the better.”
“Failure is so important. We speak about success all the time. It is the ability to resist failure or use failure that often leads to greater success.”
“The knowledge that you have emerged wiser and stronger from setbacks means that you are, ever after, secure in your ability to survive.”
“There is an expiration date on blaming your parents for steering you in the wrong direction; the moment you are old enough to take the wheel, responsibility lies with you.”
“You control your own life; your own will is extremely powerful.”
“Are you the sort of person who gloats when they see a woman fall, or the kind that celebrates a magnificent recovery?”
“It matters not what someone is born, but what they grow to be.”
“You will never truly know yourself, or the strength of your relationships, until both have been tested by adversity.”
“Life is difficult, and complicated, and beyond anyone’s total control, and the humility to know that will enable you to survive its vicissitudes.”
“If it’s a good book, anyone will read it. I’m totally unashamed about still reading things I loved in my childhood.”
“You’ve got to work. It’s about structure. It’s about discipline. It’s all these deadly things that your schoolteacher told you you needed.”
“Wit beyond measure is a man’s greatest treasure.”
“I don’t think there’s any harm at all in allowing a kid to fantasize. In fact, I think to stop people from fantasizing is a very destructive thing indeed.”
“The truth… is a beautiful and terrible thing and should therefore be treated with great caution.”
“You have to resign yourself to wasting lots of trees before you write anything really good. That’s just how it is. It’s like learning an instrument. You’ve got to be prepared for hitting wrong notes occasionally, or quite a lot. That’s just part of the learning process. And read a lot. Reading a lot really helps. Read anything you can get your hands on.”
“Numbing the pain for a while will make it worse when you finally feel it.”
“If you want to know what a man’s like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.”
“Life is too short. I only want to do things that I enjoy, or that I think are good or worth doing.”
“Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.”
