When Filch wasn't guarding the scene of the crime, he was skulking red-eyed through the corridors, lunging out at unsuspecting students and trying to put them in detention for things like "breathing loudly" and "looking happy.

On and on they flew, over the countryside parceled out in patches of green and brown, over roads and rivers winding through the landscapes like strips of matte and glossy ribbon.

I've only suffered writer's block badly once, and that was during the writing of Chamber of Secrets. I had my first burst of publicity about the first book and it paralysed me. I was scared the second book wouldn't measure up, but I got through it!

Personally, I'd have welcomed a dementor attack. A deadly struggle for my soul would have broken the monotony nicely.

Years ago someone wrote [about me]: 'She characterizes Molly Weasley as a mother who is only at home looking after the children.' I was deeply offended, because I until a year before that had also been such a mother who was at home all the time taking care of her child [...] What has lesser status and is more difficult than raising a child? And what is more important?

There was a point where I really felt I had 'penniless divorcee lone parent' tattooed on my head.

The consequences of our actions are always so complicated, so diverse, that predicting the future is a very difficult business indeed.