Books are like mirrors: if a fool looks in, you cannot expect a genius to look out.

The hippogriff took off into the air. . . . He and his rider became smaller and smaller as Harry gazed after them . . . then a cloud drifted across the moon. . . . They were gone.

I have to write the story I want to write. I never wrote them with a focus group of 8-year-olds in mind. I have to continue telling the story the way I want to tell it.

Ah, well, people can be stupid abou' their pets," said Hagrid wisely.

Perhaps just one more, Master Harry, for luck?

Of all the subjects on this planet, I think my parents would have been hard put to name one less useful than Greek mythology to securing the keys to an executive bathroom.

I definitely know that-that love is the most powerful thing of all and I remember thinking that-God, I'm about to make myself cry but, I remember thinking that when 9/11 happened because those last phone calls were about-the last thing knowingly, that I'm going to say on this earth is 'I love you.' What's more powerful than that? What's more proof than that? Beyond fear, beyond death.