J.K. Rowling
See also: Robert Galbraith
Although she writes under the pen name J.K. Rowling, pronounced like rolling, her name when her first Harry Potter book was published was simply Joanne Rowling. Anticipating that the target audience of young boys might not want to read a book written by a woman, her publishers demanded that she use two initials, rather than her full name. As she had no middle name, she chose K as the second initial of her pen name, from her paternal grandmother Kathleen Ada Bulgen Rowling. She calls herself Jo and has said, "No one ever called me 'Joanne' when I was young, unless they were angry." Following her marriage, she has sometimes used the name Joanne Murray when conducting personal business. During the Leveson Inquiry she gave evidence under the name of Joanne Kathleen Rowling. In a 2012 interview, Rowling noted that she no longer cared that people pronounced her name incorrectly.
Rowling was born to Peter James Rowling, a Rolls-Royce aircraft engineer, and Anne Rowling (née Volant), on 31 July 1965 in Yate, Gloucestershire, England, 10 miles (16 km) northeast of Bristol. Her mother Anne was half-French and half-Scottish. Her parents first met on a train departing from King's Cross Station bound for Arbroath in 1964. They married on 14 March 1965. Her mother's maternal grandfather, Dugald Campbell, was born in Lamlash on the Isle of Arran. Her mother's paternal grandfather, Louis Volant, was awarded the Croix de Guerre for exceptional bravery in defending the village of Courcelles-le-Comte during the First World War.
Rowling's sister Dianne was born at their home when Rowling was 23 months old. The family moved to the nearby village Winterbourne when Rowling was four. She attended St Michael's Primary School, a school founded by abolitionist William Wilberforce and education reformer Hannah More. Her headmaster at St Michael's, Alfred Dunn, has been suggested as the inspiration for the Harry Potter headmaster Albus Dumbledore.
As a child, Rowling often wrote fantasy stories, which she would usually then read to her sister. She recalls that: "I can still remember me telling her a story in which she fell down a rabbit hole and was fed strawberries by the rabbit family inside it. Certainly the first story I ever wrote down (when I was five or six) was about a rabbit called Rabbit. He got the measles and was visited by his friends, including a giant bee called Miss Bee." At the age of nine, Rowling moved to Church Cottage in the Gloucestershire village of Tutshill, close to Chepstow, Wales. When she was a young teenager, her great aunt, who Rowling said "taught classics and approved of a thirst for knowledge, even of a questionable kind," gave her a very old copy of Jessica Mitford's autobiography, Hons and Rebels. Mitford became Rowling's heroine, and Rowling subsequently read all of her books.
Rowling has said of her teenage years, in an interview with The New Yorker, "I wasn’t particularly happy. I think it’s a dreadful time of life." She had a difficult homelife; her mother was ill and she had a difficult relationship with her father (she is no longer on speaking terms with him). She attended secondary school at Wyedean School and College, where her mother had worked as a technician in the science department. Rowling said of her adolescence, "Hermione [a bookish, know-it-all Harry Potter character] is loosely based on me. She's a caricature of me when I was eleven, which I'm not particularly proud of." Steve Eddy, who taught Rowling English when she first arrived, remembers her as "not exceptional" but "one of a group of girls who were bright, and quite good at English." Sean Harris, her best friend in the Upper Sixth owned a turquoise Ford Anglia, which she says inspired the one in her books.
“I want to commit the murder I was imprisoned for.”
“Does it hurt?" The childish question had escaped Harry's lips before he could stop it. "Dying? Not at all," said Sirius. "Quicker and easier than falling asleep.”
“Ron," said Hermione in a dignified voice, "you are the most insensitive wart I have ever had the misfortune to meet.”
“The truth." Dumbledore sighed. "It is a beautiful and terrible thing, and should therefore be treated with great caution.”
“It's going to be all right, sir," Harry said over and over again, more worried by Dumbledore's silence than he had been by his weakened voice. "We're nearly there ... I can Apparate us both back ... don't worry ...""I am not worried, Harry," said Dumbledore, his voice a little stronger despite the freezing water. "I am with you.”
“He can run faster than Severus Snape confronted with shampoo.”
“Do you remember me telling you we are practicing non-verbal spells, Potter?""Yes," said Harry stiffly."Yes, sir.""There's no need to call me "sir" Professor."The words had escaped him before he knew what he was saying.”
“You think the dead we loved ever truly leave us? You think that we don't recall them more clearly in times of great trouble?”
“Not my daughter, you bitch!”
“Do not pity the dead, Harry. Pity the living, and, above all those who live without love.”
“Youth can not know how age thinks and feels. But old men are guilty if they forget what it was to be young.”
“Percy wouldn't notice a joke if it danced naked in front of him wearing one of Dobby's hats.”
“Neither can live while the other survives, and one of us is about to leave for good...”
“Ah" said Dumbledore gently, "Yes I thought we might hit that little snag!""Snag?" said Fudge, his voice still vibrating with joy. "I see no snag, Dumbledore!""Well," said Dumbledore apologetically, "I'm afraid I do.""Oh, really?""Well it's just that you seem to be labouring under the delusion that I am going to -- come quietly. I am afraid I am not going to come quietly at all, Cornelius. I have absolutely no intention of being sent to Azkaban. I could break out, of course -- but what a waste of time, and frankly, I can think of a whole host of things I would rather be doing.”
“Would it hurt to die?”
“Apparently wizards poke their noses in everywhere!”
“Well?" Ron said finally, looking up at Harry. "How was it?"Harry considered it for a moment. "Wet," he said truthfully.Ron made a noise that might have indicated jubilation or disgust, it was hard to tell."Because she was crying," Harry continued heavily."Oh," said Ron, his smile faded slightly. "Are you that bad at kissing?""Dunno," said Harry, who hadn't considered this, and immediately felt rather worried. "Maybe I am.”
“But before he went loopy he was the life and soul of the party," said Fred. "He used to down an entire bottle of firewhiskey, then run onto the dance floor, hoist up his robes, and start pulling bunches of flowers out of his--"Yes, he sounds like a real charmer," said Hermione, while Harry roared with laughter.Never married, for some reason," said Ron.”
“I took a wrong turn on the way to the bathroom and found myself in a beautifully proportioned room I had never seen before, containing a really rather magnificent collection of chamberpots. When I went back to investigate more closely, I discovered that the room had vanished. But I must keep an eye out for it. Possibly it is only accessible at five thirty in the morning. Or it may only appear at the quarter moon - or when the seeker has an exceptionally full bladder.”
“Dumbledore will only leave from Hogwarts when there are none loyal to him!”
“I hope you're pleased with yourselves. We could all have been killed - or worse, expelled. Now if you don't mind, I'm going to bed.”
“Swish and flick.”
“Wit beyond measure is man’s greatest treasure.”
“It was, he thought, the difference between being dragged into the arena to face a battle to the death and walking into the arena with your head held high. Some people, perhaps, would say that there was little to choose between the two ways, but Dumbledore knew - and so do I, thought Harry, with a rush of fierce pride, and so did my parents - that there was all the difference in the world.”
“Your mother died to save you. If there is one thing Voldemort cannot understand, it is love. He didn't realize that love as powerful as your mother's for you leaves its own mark. Not a scar, no visible sign… to have been loved so deeply, even though the person who loved us is gone, will give us some protection forever. It is in your very own skin. Quirrel, full of hatred, greed, and ambition, sharing his soul with Voldemort, could not touch you for this reason. It was agony to touch a person marked by something so good.”
“How did you get here?" Harry asked."Flew," said Hagrid."Flew?”
“P.S. I enjoy acid pops.”
“Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!”
“His priority did not seem to be to teach them what he knew, but rather to impress upon them that nothing, not even... knowledge, was foolproof.”
“It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.”
“So why in the name of Merlin’s saggy left —”“Don’t talk to your mother like that.”
“I'm going to keep going until I succeed — or die. Don't think I don't know how this might end. I've known it for years.”
“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 scar had not pained Harry for nineteen years. All was well.”
“It is a strange thing, but when you are dreading something, and would give anything to slow down time, it has a disobliging habit of speeding up.”
“Oh well... I'd just been thinking, if you had died, you'd have been welcome to share my toilet.”
“It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends.”
“From this point forth, we shall be leaving the firm foundation of fact and journeying together through the murky marshes of memory into thickets of wildest guesswork.”
“We're all human, aren't we? Every human life is worth the same, and worth saving.”
“It unscrews the other way.”
“You'd think I walk around with my eyes shut, banging off the walls.”
“It's lucky it's dark. I haven't blushed so much since Madam Pomfrey told me she liked my new earmuffs.”
“There's nothing better when something comes and hits you and you think 'YES'!”
“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?”
“Let us step into the night and pursue that flighty temptress, adventure.”
“As much money and life as you could want! The two things most human beings would choose above all - the trouble is, humans do have a knack of choosing precisely those things that are worst for them.”
“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.”
“Alas! Earwax!”
“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!”
“If you want to know what a man's like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.”