“Every time you go to see Hamlet you don't expect it to have a happy ending...you're still enthralled.(Interview BBC Radio 4 Today 17 October 2012.)”

“I am of the opinion, and even more so the older I get, that it is more difficult to have hope than it is to despair. And I mean this in the sense that in order to have hope you must acknowledge the despair and then you have to get beyond it.Taken from a radio interview given on BBC Radio 4's Open Book”

“f you expect to be successful, you will eventually be successful. If you expect to be happy and popular, you will be happy and popular. If you expect to be healthy and prosperous, that is what will happen... Always think and talk positively about the future. Start every morning by saying: 'I believe something wonderful is going to happen to me today.' Then, throughout the day, expect the best.”

“You frighten me, when you say there isn't time.""I don't see why. Christians have been expecting the imminent end of the world for millennia.""But it keeps not ending.""So far, so good.”

“Wherever I am, if I've got a book with me, I have a place I can go and be happy."[Harry Potter Beyond the Page: A Virtual Author Visit with J.K. Rowling (Scholastic / Stacks webcast, October 11, 2012)]”

“If you're still, and if you don't hope too much, peace will come to you. It's a grace. But you have to choose happiness.”