- [Asked by an interviewer about the next "Harry Potter" novel] Well, it will be a papery object with pages inside.
- [on her daughter, Jessica] Kids at her school will sidle up to me and say, "Does Jessica know what happens in book 4? Does Jessica know the title of book 4?" And I keep saying, "No! There is no point kidnapping her, taking her around back of the bike shed, and torturing her for information."
- Bigotry is probably the thing I detest most. Anything's possible if you've got enough nerve.
- 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."
- I gave my hero a talent I'd love to have. Who wouldn't want to fly?
- The spells are made up. I have met people who assure me, very seriously, that they are trying to do them, and I can assure them, just as seriously, that they don't work.
- [When asked what the title would be for book six] It will be called 'Harry Potter and...' something. Catchy, don't you think? And I think I'll follow the same model for seven.
- People ask me if there are going to be stories of Harry Potter as an adult. Frankly, if I wanted to, I could keep writing stories until Harry is a senior citizen, but I don't know how many people would actually want to read about a 65 year old Harry still at Hogwarts playing bingo with Ron and Hermione.
- [on being held up at an airport for refusing to be parted from the manuscript of her seventh "Harry Potter" novel] The heightened security restrictions on the airlines made the journey back from New York interesting, as I refused to be parted from the manuscript of book seven. A large part of it is handwritten and there was no copy of anything I had done while in the U.S. They let me take it on thankfully, bound up in elastic bands. I don't know what I would have done if they hadn't -- sailed home probably.
- I would like to be remembered as someone who did the best she could with the talent she had.
- 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. I was set free, because my greatest fear had been realized, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom 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. It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you've lived so cautiously, that you might as well not have lived at all.
- [At the premiere at the last Harry Potter movie (2011)] Hogwarts will always be there to welcome you home.
- [on making a $1.68-million donation for the campaign against the Scottish Independence movement] The more I listen to the 'yes' campaign, the more I worry about its minimization and even denial of risks. This separation will not be quick and clean. It will take microsurgery to disentangle three centuries of close interdependence. I just hope with all my heart that we never have cause to look back and feel we made a historically bad mistake.
- Rock bottom became the solid foundation upon which I rebuilt my life.
- Love as powerful as your mother's for you leaves its mark. To have been loved so deeply will give us some protection forever.
- We don't need magic to transform our world. We carry all the power we need inside ourselves already!
- [on C.S. Lewis' "The Chronicles of Narnia" fantasy novels] There comes a point where Susan, who was the older girl, is lost to Narnia because she becomes interested in lipstick. She's become irreligious basically because she found sex. I have a big problem with that.
- [written on Twitter] Just unfollowed a man whom I thought was smart and funny, because he called [British prime minister] Theresa May a whore. If you can't disagree with a woman without reaching for all those filthy old insults, screw you and your politics. I'm sick of 'liberal' men whose mask slips every time a woman displeases them, who reach immediately for crude and humiliating words associated with femaleness, act like old-school misogynists and then preen themselves as though they've been brave. When you do this, Mr. Liberal Cool Guy, you ally yourself, wittingly or not, with the men who send women violent pornographic images and rape threats, who try by every means possible to intimidate women out of politics and public spaces, both real and digital. 'Cunt', 'whore' and, naturally, rape. We're too ugly to rape, or we need raping, or we need raping and killing. Every woman I know who has dared express an opinion publically has endured this kind of abuse at least once, rooted in an apparent determination to humiliate or intimidate her on the basis that she is female. If you want to know how much fouler it gets if you also happen to be black or gay, ask [British politicians] Diane Abbott or Ruth Davidson. I don't care whether we're talking about Theresa May or [British politicians] Nicola Sturgeon or Kate Hoey or Yvette Cooper or [American politician] Hillary Clinton: femaleness is not a design flaw. If your immediate response to a woman who displeases you is to call her a synonym for her vulva, or compare her to a prostitute, then drop the pretense and own it: you're not a liberal. You're a few short steps away from some guy hiding behind a cartoon frog. [June 9, 2017]
- I chose to remain a domiciled taxpayer for a couple of reasons. The main one was that I wanted my children to grow up where I grew up, to have proper roots in a culture as old and magnificent as Britain's; to be citizens, with everything that implies, of a real country, not free-floating ex-pats, living in the limbo of some tax haven and associating only with the children of similarly greedy tax exiles. A second reason, however, was that I am indebted to the British welfare state; the very one that Mr Cameron [David Cameron] would like to replace with charity handouts. When my life hit rock bottom, that safety net, threadbare though it had become under John Major's government, was there to break the fall. I cannot help feeling, therefore, that it would have been contemptible to scarper for the West Indies at the first sniff of a seven-figure royalty cheque. This, if you like, is my notion of patriotism. On the available evidence, I suspect that it is Lord Ashcroft's [Michael Ashcroft] idea of being a mug.
- This may surprise people, but it is the truth. In many, many ways, Hufflepuff is my favorite House. There comes a point in the final book where each House has the choice whether or not to rise to a certain challenge... The Slytherins, for reasons that are understandable, decide they'd rather not play. The Ravenclaws: some decide they will, some decide they won't. The Hufflepuffs, virtually to a person, stay - as do the Gryffindors. Now, the Gryffindors comprise a lot of fool-hardy and show-offy people. That's just the way it is. I'm a Gryffindor, I'm allowed to say it. There's bravery and there's also showboating, and sometimes the two go together. The Hufflepuffs stayed for a different reason. They weren't trying to show off. They weren't being reckless. That's the essence of Hufflepuff House. Now my oldest child, my daughter Jessica, said something very profound to me not very many days ago actually. She said to me - and she, by the way, was not Sorted into Hufflepuff House - but she said to me, "I think we should all want to be Hufflepuffs." I can only say to you that I would not be at all disappointed to be Sorted into Hufflepuff House. So I'm a little upset that anyone does feel that way.
- I gave up May 10, 2000... Now I'm addicted to Nicorets, but at least I haven't smoked... I'd given up before, I'd given it up for two years once before, and actually, Chamber of Secrets I wrote as a non-smoker. But then I started smoking again for Prisoner of Azkaban. Then Goblet of Fire I smoked through and now book five is going to be another non-smoker book. I can't go further than that. It's a day-to-day battle for me because I do love smoking.
- [Harry Potter character] Lupin's a wonderful teacher and a very nice man but he has a failing and his failing is that he does like to be liked and that's where he slips up because he has been disliked so often that he's always so pleased to have friends so he cuts them an awful lot of slack.
- Morrissey was a big deal to me when I was in my teens. A *very* big deal.
- I love: Harry, Hermione, Ron, Hagrid, Dumbledore, Ginny, Fred, George and Lupin. I love writing (though would not necessarily want to meet) Snape. My favourite new character is Luna Lovegood.
- [Harry Potter character Sirius Black] That man's got a lot of fans. Mostly female, I might add.
- If sex isn't real, there's no same-sex attraction. If sex isn't real, the lived reality of women globally is erased. I know and love trans people, but erasing the concept of sex removes the ability of many to meaningfully discuss their lives. It isn't hate to speak the truth. [on Twitter, 2020]
- 'People who menstruate.' I'm sure there used to be a word for those people. Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?
- The long-term health risks of cross-sex hormones have been now been tracked over a lengthy period. These side-effects are often minimised or denied by trans activists.
- The Labour Party can no longer be counted on to defend women's rights.
- Since speaking up about gender identity theory, I've received thousands of emails - more than I've ever had on a single subject. Many have come from professionals working in medicine, education and social work. All are concerned about the effects on vulnerable young people.
- [on Alan Rickman's death]: There are no words to express how shocked and devastated I am to hear of Alan Rickman's death. He was a magnificent actor and a wonderful man. My thoughts are with Rima and the rest of Alan's family. We have lost a great talent They have lost part of their hearts.
- [on Billy Bragg] Hard to think of anything that better illustrates misogyny than men complaining that a woman has a view on woman's rights.
- [on woke] The left is making a tremendous mistake in espousing this quasi-religious witch-hunting behaviour. People will go to where they will be embraced and can make jokes that are accepted, even if it is full of poisonous ideas. They are shutting down debate and freedom of thought and expression. If we cannot look to those institutions, then we are in trouble.
- We're dealing with children, in my view, being persuaded that a solution for all distress is lifelong medicalization. There's no playing with this, experimenting with this and not suffering harm. I genuinely think that we are watching one of the worst medical scandals in a century.
- [on India Willoughby] India didn't become a woman. India is cosplaying a misogynistic male fantasy of what a woman is.
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