Roger Highfield

“If Newton had not, as Wordsworth put it, voyaged through strange seas of thought alone, someone else would have. If Marie Curie had not lived, we still would have discovered the radioactive elements polonium and radium. But if J. K. Rowling had not been born, we would never have known about Harry Potter. That is why Master Potter means so much to me. Science may be special but Harry, as a work of art, is more so. Harry Potter is unique.”

“They Harry Potters still enormously outnumber the likes of Petunia and Vernon Dursley in society, who just don't hold with such nonsense, perhaps reflecting how modern life seems more out of control than ever. Most people do indeed believe in magic of one sort or another, whether the thespian who shouts "break a leg" at a colleague, the student who always wears the same outfit for exams, the blushing bride who crosses her fingers for good luck or those who jump with joy when they find a four-leaf clover. Why is our belief in magic so deeply ingrained? Indeed, why do we believe in anything at all?”

“Words can calm people, can make them them fall in love, can whip them up into a frenzy, can turn them into killers.”