Actually finishing it was the most remarkable feeling I've ever had... [I felt] euphoria, devastated... I was in a hotel room on my own, sobbing my heart out. I downed half a bottle of champagne in one and went home with mascara all over my face.
J. K. Rowling
On finishing her seventh and last Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Deadly Hallows.

I sat and thought for four (delayed train) hours, and all the details bubbled up in my brain, and this scrawny, black-haired, bespectacled boy who didn't know he was a wizard became more and more real to me.
J. K. Rowling
How the Harry Potter tale came to her during a delayed train journey.

Writing for me is a kind of compulsion, so I don't think anyone could have
made me do it, or prevented me from doing it.
J. K. Rowling

Probably the very best thing my earnings have given me is absense of worry. I have not forgotten what it feels like to worry whether you'll have enough to pay the bills. Not to have to think about that any more is the biggest luxury in the world.
J. K. Rowling

If you've literally been worrying, "Will the money last until the end of the week?" you will never, ever complain about having money.
J. K. Rowling

I personally never expected to be in the papers. The height of my ambition for these books was, well frankly, to get reviewed. A lot of children's books don't even get reviewed.
J. K. Rowling

I imagined being a famous writer would be like being Jane Austen, being able to sit at home in the parsonage and your books would be very famous.
J. K. Rowling

I didn't think they'd rake through my bins, I didn't expect to be photographed on the beach through long lenses.
J. K. Rowling
On how she felt besieged by the press.