I was convinced that the only thing I wanted to do ever - was write novels.

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.

The Ministry places a rather higher value on my life than yours, I’m afraid.

Oh, he knows how to play, little bitty baby Potter.

'You all righ'?' he said gruffly. 'Yeah,' said Harry. 'No, yeh're not,' said Hagrid. 'Of course yeh're not. But yeh will be.'

Young people are so infernally convinced that they are absolutely right about everything.

'It only put me in Gryffindor,' said Harry in a defeated voice, 'because I asked not to go in Slytherin...' 'Exactly' said Dumbledore, beaming once more. 'Which makes you very different from Tom Riddle. It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.'