J.K. Rowling · 223 pages
Rating: (5.3M votes)
“It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live.”
― J.K. Rowling, quote from Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
“It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends.”
― J.K. Rowling, quote from Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
“The truth." Dumbledore sighed. "It is a beautiful and terrible thing, and should therefore be treated with great caution.”
― J.K. Rowling, quote from Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
“You haven't got a letter on yours," George observed. "I suppose she thinks you don't forget your name. But we're not stupid-we know we're called Gred and Forge.”
― J.K. Rowling, quote from Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
“Fear of a name increases fear of the thing itself.”
― J.K. Rowling, quote from Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
“Now, you two – this year, you behave yourselves. If I get one more owl telling me you've – you've blown up a toilet or –"
"Blown up a toilet? We've never blown up a toilet."
"Great idea though, thanks, Mum.”
― J.K. Rowling, quote from Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
“There are some things you can't share without ending up liking each other, and knocking out a twelve-foot mountain troll is one of them.”
― J.K. Rowling, quote from Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
“Ah, music," he said, wiping his eyes. "A magic beyond all we do here!”
― J.K. Rowling, quote from Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
“What happened down in the dungeons between you and Professor Quirrell is a complete secret, so, naturally the whole school knows.”
― J.K. Rowling, quote from Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
“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.”
― J.K. Rowling, quote from Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
“So light a fire!" Harry choked. "Yes...of course...but there's no wood!" ...
"HAVE YOU GONE MAD!" Ron bellowed. "ARE YOU A WITCH OR NOT!”
― J.K. Rowling, quote from Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
“Harry - you're a great wizard, you know."
"I'm not as good as you," said Harry, very embarrassed, as she let go of him.
"Me!" said Hermione. "Books! And cleverness! There are more important things - friendship and bravery and - oh Harry - be careful!”
― J.K. Rowling, quote from Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
“There is no good and evil, there is only power and those too weak to seek it.”
― J.K. Rowling, quote from Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
“A breeze ruffled the neat hedges of Privet Drive, which lay silent and tidy under the inky sky, the very last place you would expect astonishing things to happen. Harry Potter rolled over inside his blankets without waking up. One small hand closed on the letter beside him and he slept on, not knowing he was special, not knowing he was famous, not knowing he would be woken in a few hours' time by Mrs. Dursley's scream as she opened the front door to put out the milk bottles, nor that he would spend the next few weeks being prodded and pinched by his cousin Dudley...He couldn't know that at this very moment, people meeting in secret all over the country were holding up their glasses and saying in hushed voices: "To Harry Potter - the boy who lived!”
― J.K. Rowling, quote from Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
“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.”
― J.K. Rowling, quote from Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
“Can't stay long, Mother," he said. "I'm up front, the prefects have got two compartments to themselves-"
"Oh, are you a prefect, Percy?" said one of the twins, with an air of great surprise. "You should have said something, we had no idea."
"Hang on, I think I remember him saying something about it," said the other twin. "Once-"
"Or twice-"
"A minute-"
"All summer-"
"Oh, shut up," said Percy the Prefect.”
― J.K. Rowling, quote from Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
“Hogwarts, Hogwarts, Hoggy Warty Hogwarts,
Teach us something please,
Whether we be old and bald,
Or young with scabby knees,
Our heads could do with filling
With some interesting stuff,
For now they're bare and full of air,
Dead flies and bits of fluff,
So teach us something worth knowing,
Bring us back what we've forgot,
Just do your best, we'll do the rest,
And learn until our brains all rot...”
― J.K. Rowling, quote from Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
“Draco Dormiens Nunquam Titillandus
[never tickle a sleeping dragon]”
― J.K. Rowling, quote from Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
“Everybody finished the song at different times. At last, only the Weasley twins were left singing along to a very slow funeral march.”
― J.K. Rowling, quote from Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
“Don't play," said Hermione at once.
"Say you're ill," said Ron.
"Pretend to break your leg," Hermione suggested.
"Really break your leg," said Ron.”
― J.K. Rowling, quote from Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
“I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even put a stopper on death.”
― J.K. Rowling, quote from Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
“Do you mean ter tell me," he growled at the Dursleys, "that this boy—this boy!—knows nothin' abou'—about ANYTHING?"
Harry thought this was going a bit far. He had been to school, after all, and his marks weren't bad.
"I know some things," he said. "I can, you know, do math and stuff.”
― J.K. Rowling, quote from Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
“Enter, stranger, but take heed
Of what awaits the sin of greed,
For those who take, but do not earn,
Must pay most dearly in their turn.
So if you seek beneath our floors
A treasure that was never yours,
Thief, you have been warned, beware
Of finding more than treasure there.”
― J.K. Rowling, quote from Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
“Fred, you next," the plump woman said.
"I'm not Fred, I'm George," said the boy. "Honestly, woman, you call yourself our mother? Can't you tell I'm George?"
"Sorry, George, dear."
"Only joking, I am Fred," said the boy and off he went.”
― J.K. Rowling, quote from Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
J.K. Rowling
Born place: in Yate, South Gloucestershire, England, The United Kingdom
Born date July 31, 1965
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“What is the use of beauty in woman? Provided a woman is physically well made and capable of bearing children, she will always be good enough in the opinion of economists.
What is the use of music? -- of painting? Who would be fool enough nowadays to prefer Mozart to Carrel, Michael Angelo to the inventor of white mustard?
There is nothing really beautiful save what is of no possible use. Everything useful is ugly, for it expresses a need, and man's needs are low and disgusting, like his own poor, wretched nature. The most useful place in a house is the water-closet.
For my part, saving these gentry's presence, I am of those to whom superfluities are necessaries, and I am fond of things and people in inverse ratio to the service they render me. I prefer a Chinese vase with its mandarins and dragons, which is perfectly useless to me, to a utensil which I do use, and the particular talent of mine which I set most store by is that which enables me not to guess logogriphs and charades. I would very willingly renounce my rights as a Frenchman and a citizen for the sight of an undoubted painting by Raphael, or of a beautiful nude woman, -- Princess Borghese, for instance, when she posed for Canova, or Julia Grisi when she is entering her bath. I would most willingly consent to the return of that cannibal, Charles X., if he brought me, from his residence in Bohemia, a case of Tokai or Johannisberg; and the electoral laws would be quite liberal enough, to my mind, were some of our streets broader and some other things less broad. Though I am not a dilettante, I prefer the sound of a poor fiddle and tambourines to that of the Speaker's bell. I would sell my breeches for a ring, and my bread for jam. The occupation which best befits civilized man seems to me to be idleness or analytically smoking a pipe or cigar. I think highly of those who play skittles, and also of those who write verse. You may perceive that my principles are not utilitarian, and that I shall never be the editor of a virtuous paper, unless I am converted, which would be very comical.
Instead of founding a Monthyon prize for the reward of virtue, I would rather bestow -- like Sardanapalus, that great, misunderstood philosopher -- a large reward to him who should invent a new pleasure; for to me enjoyment seems to be the end of life and the only useful thing on this earth. God willed it to be so, for he created women, perfumes, light, lovely flowers, good wine, spirited horses, lapdogs, and Angora cats; for He did not say to his angels, 'Be virtuous,' but, 'Love,' and gave us lips more sensitive than the rest of the skin that we might kiss women, eyes looking upward that we might behold the light, a subtile sense of smell that we might breathe in the soul of the flowers, muscular limbs that we might press the flanks of stallions and fly swift as thought without railway or steam-kettle, delicate hands that we might stroke the long heads of greyhounds, the velvety fur of cats, and the polished shoulder of not very virtuous creatures, and, finally, granted to us alone the triple and glorious privilege of drinking without being thirsty, striking fire, and making love in all seasons, whereby we are very much more distinguished from brutes than by the custom of reading newspapers and framing constitutions.”
― Théophile Gautier, quote from Mademoiselle de Maupin
“She cast her fragrance and her radiance over me. I ought never to have run away from her... I ought to have guessed all the affection that lay behind her poor little stratagems. Flowers are so inconsistent! But I was too young to know how to love her...”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, quote from Der kleine Prinz
“In the university, professors make up artificial problems. In the real world, the problems do not come in nice, neat packages. They have to be discovered.”
― Donald A. Norman, quote from Design of Everyday Things: Revised and Expanded Edition (Revised)
“It was my first brush with live performance. And delusion. •”
― quote from Sleepwalk With Me and Other Painfully True Stories
“Let's be off before he gets his great horsey teeth into my poor lines of verse!”
― Cornelia Funke, quote from Sangre de tinta
Futures and Frosting
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