J.K. Rowling Quotes

[The project eventually became Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (1997). Rowling's first husband] knew what that manuscript meant to me because at a point he took the manuscript and hid it. That was his hostage.
When I realised I was definitely going to go, I would take a few pages of the manuscript into work every day, just a few pages so he wouldn't realise anything was missing, and I would photocopy it.
Gradually in a cupboard in the staff room, bit by bit, a photocopied manuscript grew and grew because I suspected that if I wasn’t able to get out with everything he would burn it or take it and hold it hostage.
That manuscript meant so much to me and it was the thing that I prioritised saving. The only thing I prioritised beyond that was my daughter but at that point she was still inside me so she was as safe as she can be in that situation.

[In the United States, during the early 2000s, Rowling's books were burned by Evangelical Christians because they were perceived as promoting witchcraft.] Book burners, by definition, have placed themselves across a line of rational debate.
There is no book on this planet that I would burn, including books that I do think are damaging. Burning, to me, is the last resort of people who cannot argue.

There is a huge appeal, and I try to show this in the Potter books, to black and white thinking.
It's the easiest place to be and in many ways it's the safest place to be. If you take an all-or-nothing position on anything, you will definitely find comrades, you will easily find a community. "I’ve sworn allegiance to this one simple idea."
What I've tried to show in the Potter books, and what I feel strongly myself, is that we should mistrust ourselves most when we are certain.

This has never been about trans rights. [...] This is about women’s rights and activists' demands to dismantle those rights.
I have nothing but profound sympathy for trans women who have experienced male violence.
I want trans people to be safe. I just don't want women and girls to be any less safe.

I've looked around and realised that it has to be someone who can take the hit. And it has to be me. I can afford it.

Given that you're one of the biggest reasons many women on the Left no longer trust Labour to defend their rights, do you stand by these comments?

[To Labour frontbencher Lisa Nandy] You said rapists should be transferred to women's prisons if they self-identify as women.

Never forget, Sturgeon, her government and supporters have insisted that it is ludicrous to imagine anyone would dress in women's clothes to get access to vulnerable women and girls. Wouldn't happen. Everyone is who they say they are. To question this is hate.

A strange new form of temporary blindness has broken out among Scottish politicians.
None of them could read placards calling for violence against women while standing inches away from them, yet they were instantly cured when photos of them posing with the signs hit the press.

Critiques of Western cancel culture are possibly not best made by those currently slaughtering civilians for the crime of resistance, or who jail and poison their critics. #IStandWithUkraine

The most searing, heartfelt and courageous response yet to Shona Robison's astounding claim in the Scottish parliament that there is no evidence sexual predators "have ever had to pretend to be anything else". Susan, as a fellow survivor, I salute you.

The law Nicola Sturgeon is trying to pass in Scotland will harm the most vulnerable women in society — those seeking help after male violence/rape and incarcerated women.
Statistics show that imprisoned women are already far more likely to have been previously abused.

War is Peace.
Freedom is Slavery.
Ignorance is Strength.
The Penised Individual Who Raped You Is a Woman.

I have to assume [they] thought doxxing me would intimidate me out of speaking up for women's sex-based rights. They should have reflected on the fact that I've now received so many death threats I could paper the house with them, and I haven't stopped speaking out. Perhaps, and I'm just throwing this out there, the best way to prove your movement isn't a threat to women, is to stop stalking, harassing and threatening us.

All I'm asking — all I want — is for similar empathy, similar understanding, to be extended to the many millions of women whose sole crime is wanting their concerns to be heard without receiving threats and abuse.