Skip to content

J.K. Rowling Quotes

20 quotes from J.K. Rowling — Author of the Harry Potter series, which has sold 600M+ copies and spawned a $25B franchise..

It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.

Choices

The stories we love best do live in us forever.

Stories

You will never truly know yourself, or the strength of your relationships, until both have been tested by adversity.

Adversity

We do not need magic to transform our world. We carry all the power we need inside ourselves already.

Empowerment

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.

Failure

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

Life

Indifference and neglect often do much more damage than outright dislike.

Neglect

I was set free because my greatest fear had been realized, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea.

Freedom

You control your own life. Your own will is extremely powerful.

Control

Anything's possible if you've got enough nerve.

Courage

The world is full of wonderful things you haven't seen yet. Don't ever give up on the chance of seeing them.

Hope

We all have magic inside us.

Magic

I found success by stumbling off alone in a direction most people thought was a dead end, breaking all the 1990s shibboleths about children's books in the process.

J.K. Rowling

I see it as there's a lake and there's a shed. The shed more properly should be called a workshop. I've always imagined that there's something living in that lake that chucks me things that I catch and take to my shed and work on them.

J.K. Rowling, on her creative process

Potter was incredible, and I am so grateful for what happened with Harry Potter. Having said that, there was a phenomenal amount of pressure that went with being the writer of Harry Potter, and that aspect of publishing those books I do not particularly miss. So you can probably understand the appeal of going away and creating something very different, and just letting it stand or fall on its own merits.

J.K. Rowling, on writing as Robert Galbraith

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. Failure gave me an inner security that I had never attained by passing examinations.

J.K. Rowling, Harvard Commencement Address, June 5, 2008

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.

J.K. Rowling, Harvard Commencement Address, June 5, 2008

I haven't got ten rules that guarantee success, although I promise I'd share them if I did. The truth is that I found success by stumbling off alone in a direction most people thought was a dead end.

J.K. Rowling, on her writing

I do not walk around my house, thinking about my legacy. What a pompous way to live your life. Whatever, I'll be dead. I care about now. I care about the living.

J.K. Rowling, 'The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling' podcast

There was a phenomenal amount of pressure that went with being the writer of Harry Potter, and that aspect of publishing those books I do not particularly miss. So you can probably understand the appeal of going away and creating something very different, and just letting it stand or fall on its own merits.

J.K. Rowling, NPR interview, 2015

Continue exploring