Another ten points from Gryffindor,” said Snape. “I would expect nothing more sophisticated from you, Ronald Weasley, the boy so solid he cannot Apparate half an inch across a room.

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 to 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 area where I truly belonged. 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.

Time will not slow down when something unpleasant lies ahead.

They were the reason that he kept faith with his stars, that reinforced him in his belief that the universe had more in store for him than the mug's game of working for a modest salary until he retired or died.

And they'd [the Death Eaters] love to have me," said Harry sarcastically. "We'd be best pals if they didn't keep trying to do me in.

I'll be writing until I can't write anymore. It's a compulsion with me. I love writing.

If you love something - and there are things that I love - you do want more and more and more of it, but that's not the way to produce good work.