J. K. Rowling Quotes

“Ooh, you look much tastier than Crabbe and Goyle, Harry” said Hermione, before catching sight of Ron’s raised eyebrows, blushing slightly and saying “oh you know what I mean - Goyle’s Potion looked like bogies.”

“Did you see me disarm Hermione, Harry?” “Only once” said Hermione stung. “I got you loads more then you got me—” “I did not only get you once, I got you at least three times—” “Well if you’re counting the one where you tripped over your own feet and knocked the wand out of my hand—”

“But from that moment on, Hermione Granger became their friend. Because there are somethings you can’t go through in life and become friends, and knocking out a twelve-foot mountain troll is one of them.”

“Oh I see, so basically, you’re going to take the best-looking girl who’ll have you, even if she’s completely horrible?”

“Perhaps those who are best suited to power are those who have never sought it.”

“I solemnly swear I am up to no good.”

“Differences of habit and language are nothing at all if our aims are identical and our hearts are open.”

“I sometimes find, and I am sure you know the feeling, that I simply have too many thoughts and memories crammed into my mind.”

“It does not do well to dwell on dreams and forget to live.”

“But you know, happiness can be found even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.”

“Never trust anything that can think for itself if you can’t see where it keeps its brain.”

“It is the unknown we fear when we look upon death and darkness, nothing more.”

“Curiosity is not a sin.... But we should exercise caution with our curiosity... yes, indeed.”

“The idea of a teenage Dumbledore was simply odd, like trying to imagine a stupid Hermione or a friendly Blast-Ended Skrewt.”

“Welcome to a new year at Hogwarts! Before we begin our banquet, I would like to say a few words. And here they are: Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!”

“Books! And cleverness! There are more important things! — Friendship! And Bravery!”

“At least no one on the Gryffindor team had to buy their way in, They got in on pure talent.”

“Oh for heaven’s sake! Listen to me, all of you! You’ve got just as much right as wizards to be unhappy! You’ve got the right to wages and holidays and proper clothes, you don’t have to do everything you’re told — look at Dobby!”

“I’ve always wanted to use that spell.”

“Ah, music,” he said, wiping his eyes. “A magic beyond all we do here!”

“I’m hoping to do some good in the world!”

“Fear of a name only increases fear of the thing itself.”

“Actually I’m highly logical which allows me to look past extraneous detail and perceive clearly that which others overlook.”

“I checked this out weeks ago for a bit of light reading.”

“I mean, it’s sort of exciting isn’t it? Breaking the rules.”

“Now if you two don’t mind, I’m going to bed before either of you come up with another clever idea to get us killed - or worse, expelled.”

“Are you sure that’s a real spell? Well, it’s not very good, is it?”

“Shh! Listen! Someone’s coming! I think — I think it might be us!”

“And now, Harry, let us step out into the night and pursue that flighty temptress, adventure.”

“If you want to know what a man’s like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.”

“Mr. and Mrs. Dursley of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.”

“Stop, stop, stop! You’re going to take someone’s eye out. Besides, you’re saying it wrong. It’s leviosa, not leviosar!”

“Do not pity the dead, Harry, pity the living, and above all those who live without love.”

“You sort of start thinking anything’s possible if you’ve got enough nerve.”

“You will also find that help will always be given at Hogwarts to those who ask for it.”

“Nobody’s ever asked me to a party before, as a friend!”

“Always the tone of surprise.”

“Ultimately, she had a bigger heart than she had a brain, and that’s saying something for Hermione.”

“What happened down in the dungeons between you and Professor Quirrell is a complete secret, so, naturally the whole school knows.”

“It matters not what someone is born, but what they grow to be.”

“You know, the Egyptians used to worship cats.”

“Very well spotted.”

“Are you planning to follow a career in Magical Law, Miss Granger?” asked Scrimgeour. “No, I’m not,” retorted Hermione. “I’m hoping to do some good in the world!”

“Honestly, don’t you two read?”

“I’ll fix it up with Mum and Dad, then I’ll call you. I know how to use a fellytone now—” “A telephone, Ron,” said Hermione. “Honestly, you should take Muggle Studies next year...”

“Sometimes friendship means not having to say anything. Thank yous and apologies can sometimes get lost, but that doesn’t mean they’re unexpressed,”

“The world isn’t split into good people and Death Eaters. We’ve all got both light and dark inside us. What matters is the part we choose to act on. That’s who we really are.”

“It is my belief…that the truth is generally preferable to lies.”

“I am what I am, an’ I’m not ashamed. ‘Never be ashamed,’ my ol’ dad used ter say, ‘there’s some who’ll hold it against you, but they’re not worth botherin’ with.‘”

‘No, Harry, you listen,’ said Hermione. ‘We’re coming with you. That was decided months ago — years, really.‘”

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

“The best of us sometimes eat our words.”

“Just because it’s taken you three years to notice, Ron, doesn’t mean no one else has spotted I’m a girl!”

“Dark and difficult times lie ahead. Soon we must all face the choice between what is right and what is easy.”

“Numbing the pain for a while will make it worse when you finally feel it.”

“You think the dead we loved truly ever leave us? You think that we don’t recall them more clearly in times of great trouble?”

“You’re a little scary sometimes, you know that? Brilliant ... but scary,”

“Dobby is free.”

“The truth… It is a beautiful and terrible thing, and should therefore be treated with great caution.”

“But Dumbledore says he doesn’t care what they do as long as they don’t take him off the Chocolate Frog cards.”

“For future reference, Harry, it is raspberry...although of course, if I were a Death Eater, I would have been sure to research my own jam preferences before impersonating myself.”

“I mean, you could claim that anything’s real if the only basis for believing in it is that nobody’s proved it doesn’t exist!”

“No, Harry. Even in the wizarding world, hearing voices isn’t a good sign.”

“What’s got your wand in a knot?”

“It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends.”

“To the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure.”

“Every human life is worth the same, and worth saving.”

“Words are, in my not so humble opinion, our most inexhaustible source of magic, capable of both influencing injury, and remedying it.”

“One can never have enough socks.”

“It’s lucky it’s dark. I haven’t blushed so much since Madam Pomfrey told me she liked my new earmuffs.”

“Next time there’s a ball, ask me before someone else does, and not as a last resort!”

“You’re the cleverest witch I’ve ever met Hermione.”

“Things we lose have a way of coming back to us in the end, if not always in the way we expect.”

“We are only as strong as we are united, as weak as we are divided.”

“Yer a wizard Harry.”

“Age is foolish and forgetful when it underestimates youth.”

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?”

“I think we’ve outgrown full-time education ... Time to test our talents in the real world, d’you reckon?”

“‘He must have known I’d run out on you.’ ‘No,’ Harry corrected him. ‘He must’ve always known you’d always want to come back.’”

“It is important to fight and fight again, and keep fighting, for only then can evil be kept at bay though never quite eradicated.”

“No good sittin’ worryin’ abou’ it. What’s comin’ will come, an’ we’ll meet it when it does.”

“You know, Minister, I disagree with Dumbledore on many counts...but you cannot deny he’s got style...”

It was as Harry suspected. Everyone here seemed to have been invited because they were connected to somebody well-known or influential – everyone except Ginny.

“There is no need to call me ‘sir’, Professor.”

“Then you will find yourself easy prey for the Dark Lord! Fools who wear their hearts proudly on their sleeves, who cannot control their emotions, who wallow in sad memories and allow themselves to be provoked this easily — weak people, in other words — they stand no chance against his powers! He will penetrate your mind with absurd ease, Potter!”

“You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potion-making. As there is little foolish wand-waving here, many of you will hardly believe this is magic. I don’t expect you will really understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses. . . I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even stopper death — if you aren’t as big a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach.”

Tut, tut — fame clearly isn’t everything.

“Albus Severus,” Harry said quietly, so that nobody but Ginny could hear, and she was tactful enough to pretend to be waving to Rose, who was now on the train, “you were named for two headmasters of Hogwarts. One of them was a Slytherin and he was probably the bravest man I ever knew.”

The mind is not a book, to be opened at will and examined at leisure.

“That is just as well, Potter,” said Snape coldly, “because you are neither special nor important, and it is not up to you to find out what the Dark Lord is saying to his Death Eaters.” “No — that’s your job, isn’t it?” Harry shot at him. He had not meant to say it; it had burst out of him in temper. For a long moment they stared at each other, Harry convinced he had gone too far. But there was a curious, almost satisfied expression on Snape’s face when he answered. “Yes, Potter,” he said, his eyes glinting. “That is my job.”

Mr. Moony presents his compliments to Professor Snape, and begs him to keep his abnormally large nose out of other people’s business. Mr. Prongs agrees with Mr. Moony, and would like to add that Professor Snape is an ugly git. Mr. Padfoot would like to register his astonishment that an idiot like that ever became a professor. Mr. Wormtail bids Professor Snape good day, and advises him to wash his hair, the slimeball.

The Dark Arts are many, varied, ever-changing, and eternal. Fighting them is like fighting a many-headed monster, which, each time a neck is severed, sprouts a head even fiercer and cleverer than before. You are fighting that which is unfixed, mutating, indestructible.

“Would you like me to do it now?” asked Snape, his voice heavy with irony. “Or would you like a few moments to compose an epitaph?”

“But somebody else had spoken Snape’s name, quite softly. “Severus . . .” The sound frightened Harry beyond anything he had experienced all evening. For the first time, Dumbledore was pleading. Snape gazed for a moment at Dumbledore, and there was revulsion and hatred etched in the harsh lines of his face. “Severus . . . please . . .” Snape raised his wand and pointed it directly at Dumbledore. “Avada Kedavra!” A jet of green light shot from the end of Snape’s wand and hit Dumbledore squarely in the chest. Harry’s scream of horror never left him; silent and unmoving, he was forced to watch as Dumbledore was blasted into the air. For a split second, he seemed to hang suspended beneath the shining skull, and then he fell slowly backward, like a great rag doll, over the battlements and out of sight.”

“Well, it may have escaped your notice, but life isn’t fair.”

“Kill me then,” panted Harry, who felt no fear at all, but only rage and contempt. “Kill me like you killed him, you coward —”

Dumbledore watched her fly away, and as her silvery glow faded he turned back to Snape, and his eyes were full of tears. “After all this time?” “Always,” said Snape.”

I have spied for you and lied for you, put myself in mortal danger for you. Everything was supposed to be to keep Lily Potter’s son safe. Now you tell me you have been raising him like a pig for slaughter —

“Ah, yes,” he said softly, “Harry Potter. Our new — celebrity.”

There was a long pause, and slowly Snape regained control of himself, mastered his own breathing. At last he said, ‘Very well. Very well. But never – never tell, Dumbledore! This must be between us! Swear it! I cannot bear… especially Potter’s son… I want your word!’ ‘My word, Severus, that I shall never reveal the best of you?’ Dumbledore sighed, looking down into Snape’s ferocious, anguished face. ‘If you insist …’

Yes, it is easy to see that nearly six years of magical education have not been wasted on you, Potter. Ghosts are transparent.

“Her son lives. He has her eyes, precisely her eyes. You remember the shape and color of Lily Evans’s eyes, I am sure?” “DON’T!” bellowed Snape. “Gone… dead…” “Is this remorse, Severus?” “I wish… I wish I were dead…” “And what use would that be to anyone?” said Dumbledore coldly.

“That is the second time you have spoken out of turn, Miss Granger,” said Snape coolly. “Five more points from Gryffindor for being an insufferable know-it-all.” Hermione went very red, put down her hand, and stared at the floor with her eyes full of tears. It was a mark of how much the class loathed Snape that they were all glaring at him, because every one of them had called Hermione a know-it-all at least once, and Ron, who told Hermione she was a know-it-all at least twice a week, said loudly, “You asked us a question and she knows the answer! Why ask if you don’t want to be told?”

“Have you any idea how much tyrants fear the people they oppress? All of them realize that, one day, amongst their many victims, there is sure to be one that rises against them and strikes back!”

“Enemies of the Heir, beware! You’ll be next, Mudbloods!”

“The truth. Tell them Hogwarts is no longer safe. It is as we feared, Minerva. The Chamber of Secrets has indeed been opened again.”

“Albus Dumbledore is the greatest sorcerer in the world.”

“And you must be Miss Granger. Yes, Draco’s told me all about you. And your parents. Muggles, aren’t they? Let me see. Red hair...vacant expressions...tatty second hand book...you must be the Weasleys.”

“Why spiders? Why couldn’t it be ‘follow the butterflies.‘”

“See why I’ve got to go back? I don’t belong here. I belong in your world, at Hogwarts.”

“He’ll never be gone. Not as long as those who remain are loyal to him.”

“It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.”

“You know Harry, in a way you did see your father last night... You found him inside yourself.”

“Your parents were meddlesome fools too. Mark my words, Potter. One day soon you are going to meet the same sticky end.”

“I ask all of you, who does this protect? Us or them?”

“Beds empty! No note! Car gone-could have crashed-out of my mind with worry-did you care?”

“Why had nobody ever told him? Dumbledore, Hagrid, Mr. Weasley, Cornelius Fudge... why hadn’t anyone ever mentioned the fact that Harry’s parents died because their best friend had betrayed them?”

“believed to have originated in northern Europe. Humans turn into werewolves only when bitten. There is no known cure, though recent”

“When the Dementors approached him, he heard the last moments of his mother’s life, her attempts to protect him, Harry, from Lord Voldemort, and Voldemort’s laughter before he murdered her...”

“My philosophy is that worrying means you suffer twice.”

“You’ve lost me my servant, boy!”

“New York is considerably more interesting than I expected.”

“It means “dirty blood.” Mudblood’s a foul name for someone who’s Muggle-born. Someone with non-magic parents. Someone like me. It’s not a term one usually hears in civilized conversation.”

“I’m not doing this for you. I’m doing it because – I don’t reckon my dad would’ve wanted them to become killers – just for you.”

“The unicorn’s horn, blood and hair all have highly magical properties.”

“Hey! Mr. English Guy! I think your egg is hatching.”

“A thin, pale-grey serpent with glowing red eyes, it will rise from the embers of an unsupervised fire and slither away into the shadows of the dwelling in which it finds itself, leaving an ashy trail behind it.”

″‘You fool,’ said Lupin softly. ‘Is a schoolboy grudge worth putting an innocent man back inside Azkaban?‘”

“Just a smidge.”

“I gotta tell yeh, I thought you two’d value yer friend more’n broomsticks or rats. That’s all.”

“I would like to take this opportunity to reassure Muggle purchasers that the amusing creatures described hereafter are fictional and cannot hurt you. To wizards, I say merely: Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus.”

“Imperfect understanding is often more dangerous than ignorance.”

“I don’t think I’m dreaming... I ain’t got the brains to make this up.”

″‘What we need,’ said Dumbledore slowly, and his light blue eyes moved from Harry to Hermione, ‘is more time.‘”

“I’m the only one like me.”

“He knew he was being stupid, knew that the Nimbus was beyond repair, but Harry couldn’t help it; he felt as though he’d lost one of his best friends.”

″‘You can speak Parseltongue, Harry,’ said Dumbledore calmly, ‘because Lord Voldemort-who is the last remaining ancestor of Salazar Slytherin- can speak Parseltongue.‘”

“Harry’s mind was buzzing. He was going to leave the Dursleys. He was going to live with Sirius Black, his parents’ best friend... He felt dazed...”

“People change after a while, and they’re no longer who you once knew”

“Will we die, just a little?”

“I love house elves. My uncle is a house elf.”

“We’ve lived in the shadows for too long.”

“Magical beasts are terrorizing No-Majs, when No-Majs are afraid, they attack. Contain this, or it’ll mean war.”

“I refuse to bow down any longer.”

“I wish I was a wizard.”

“Worrying means you suffer twice”

“His priority did not seem to be to teach them what he knew, but rather to impress upon them that nothing, not even centaurs’ knowledge, was foolproof.”

“Wit beyond measure is man’s greatest treasure.”

“We can’t choose our fate, but we can choose others. Be careful in knowing that.”

“Youth cannot know how age thinks and feels, but old men are guilty if they forget what it was to be young.”

“Harry, suffering like this proves you are still a man! This pain is part of being human … the fact that you can feel pain like this is your greatest strength.”

“Just because you have the emotional range of a teaspoon doesn’t mean we all have!”

“I am the Chosen One. I have to kill him. I need that memory.”

“It would be quite nice if you stopped jumping down out throats, Harry, because in case you haven’t noticed, Ron and I are on your side.”

“One person can’t feel all that at once, they’d explode.”

“But nothing I have seen in the world has supported your pronouncements that love is more powerful than my kind of magic, Dumbledore.”

“Dobby does it all himself, sir, but Dobby does not mind, for he always hopes to meet Harry Potter and tonight, sir, he has got his wish!”

“Or perhaps, to confess that you yourself are worried and frightened? You need your friends, Harry. As you so rightly said, Sirius would not have wanted you to shut yourself away.”

″‘You are protected, in short, by your ability to love!’ said Dumbledore loudly. ‘The only protection that can possibly work against the lure of power like Voldemort’s!‘”

“Greatness inspires envy, envy engenders spite, spite spawns lies.”

“A warmth was spreading through him that had nothing to do with the sunlight; a tight obstruction in his chest seemed to be dissolving. He knew that Ron and Hermione were more shocked than they were letting on, but the mere fact that they were still there on either side of him, speaking bracing words of comfort, not shrinking from him as though he were contaminated or dangerous, was worth more than he could ever tell them.”

“We must try not to sink beneath our anguish, Harry, but battle on.”

“Full of sympathetic characters, wildly imaginative situations, and countless exciting details, the first installment in the series assembles an unforgettable magical world and sets the stage for many high-stakes adventures to come.”

“A mysterious visitor rescues him from his relatives and takes him to his new home, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. After a lifetime of bottling up his magical powers, Harry finally feels like a normal kid. But even within the Wizarding community, he is special.”

He finds out that he is in fact famous, and a wizard! Unknown to Harry, his parents died when they came up against the evil Lord Voldemort, and it was Harry that killed Lord Voldemort, with only a lightning bolt scar on his forhead to show for it. He is “the boy that lived”. As Harry enrols at Hogwarts School Witchcraft & Wizardry, he meets new friends, and comes up against old enemies.

“On the other hand, he’d got into terrible trouble for being found on the roof of the school kitchens. Dudley’s gang had been chasing him as usual when, as much to Harry’s surprise as anyone else’s, there he was sitting in the chimney. The Dursleys had received a very angry letter from Harry’s headmistress telling them Harry had been climbing school buildings.”

“It was on the corner of the street that he noticed the first sign of something peculiar - a cat reading a map. For a second, Mr Dursley didn’t realize that he hadn’t seen - then he jerked his head around to look again. There was a tabby cat standing on the corner of Privet Drive.but there wasn’t a man in sight. What could he have been thinking of? It must have been a trick of the light. Mr Dursley blinked an stared at the cat. It stared back.”

“Harry Potter is just a boy, who is orphaned and is living with his unbearable Uncle, Aunt and their son, Dudley. He lives a miserable existence, where he is forced to live in a tiny cupboard under the stairs. However, his life is about to change.”

“He is the boy who lived: the only person to have ever survived a killing curse inflicted by the evil Lord Voldemort, who launched a brutal takeover of the Wizarding world, only to vanish after failing to kill Harry.”

“The Dursleys had everything they wanted but they also had a secret, and their greatest fear was that somebody would discover it. They didn’t think they could bear it if anyone found out about the Potters. Mrs. Potter was Mrs Dursley’s sister, but they hadn’t met for several years; in fact, Mrs Dursley pretended she didn’t have a sister, because her sister and her good-for-nothing husband were as unDursleysish as it was possible to be.”

“The problem was, strange things often happened around Harry and it was just no good telling the Dursley’s he didn’t make them happen. Once, Aunt Petunia, tired of Harry coming back from the barber’s looking as though he hadn’t been at all, had taken a pair of kitchen scissors and cut his hair so short he was almost bald except for his fringe, which she left to hid that horrible scar. Dudley had laughed himself silly at Harry, who spent a sleepless night imagining school the next day, where he was already laughed at for his baggy clothes and Sellotaped glasses. Next morning, however, he had got up to find his hair exactly as it had been before Aunt Petunia has shared it off. ”

″‘Excuse me’, Harry said to the plump woman. Hullo dear.′ she said. First time at Hogwarts? Ron’s new too.′ She pointed at the last and youngest of her sons. He was tall, thin and gangling, with freckles, big hands and feet and a long nose. ‘Yes, said Harry, ‘The thing is- the thing is, I don’t know how to.. ‘How to get in the platform?’ she said kindly, and Harry nodded. ‘Not to worry,’ she said. ‘All you have to do is walk straight at the barrier between platforms nine and ten. Don’t stop and don’t be scared you’ll crash into it, that’s very important. Best do it at a bit of a run if you’re nervous. Go on, go now before Ron.”

“Though Harry’s first year at Hogwarts is the best of his life, not everything is perfect. There is a dangerous secret object hidden within the castle walls, and Harry believes it’s his responsibility to prevent it from falling into evil hands. But doing so will bring him into contact with forces more terrifying than he ever could have imagined.”

“Because I don’t think Voldemort is capable of having a kind son—and you’re kind, Scorpius. To the depths of your belly, to the tips of your fingers.”

“Look, as long as you’re happy, that’s all that matters to me.”

“One of them was a Slytherin and he was probably the bravest man I ever knew.”

“They were great men, with huge flaws, and you know what—those flaws almost made them greater.”

“I mean—father-son issues, I have them. But, on the whole, I’d rather be a Malfoy than, you know, the son of the Dark Lord.”

“Love blinds. We have both tried to give our sons, not what they needed, but what we needed. We’ve been so busy trying to rewrite our own pasts, we’ve blighted their present.”

“My father proved you don’t have to be a grown-up to change the Wizarding World.”

“We cannot protect the young from harm. Pain must and will come.”

“The world changes and we change with it. I am better off in this world. But the world is not better. And I don’t want that.”

“When Amos Diggory asked for the Time-Turner my father denied they even existed. He lied to an old man who just wanted his son back—who just loved his son. And he did it because he didn’t care—because he doesn’t care. Everyone talks about all the brave things Dad did. But he made some mistakes too. Some big mistakes, in fact. I want to set one of those mistakes right. I want us to save Cedric.”

“It is exceptionally lonely, being Draco Malfoy. I will always be suspected. There is no escaping the past.”