By all means continue destroying my possessions. I daresay I have too many.
My favorite literary heroine is Jo March. It is hard to overstate what she meant to a small, plain girl called Jo, who had a hot temper and a burning ambition to be a writer.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Jo March represents the struggle and ambition of aspiring writers, serving as a powerful inspiration for many.
In this quote, J.K. Rowling reflects on the profound impact Jo March, the protagonist of Louisa May Alcott's 'Little Women', had on her own life as a young girl. Jo's character, marked by her fierce independence, fiery spirit, and unwavering determination to pursue her passion for writing, resonates deeply with those who aspire to express themselves creatively, demonstrating the importance of literary role models in shaping one's identity and ambitions.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about the importance of female role models, I might quote Rowling's admiration for Jo March.
More from J. K. Rowling
All quotes →Where are you heading, if you’ve got the choice?” James lifted an invisible sword. “‘Gryffindor, where dwell the brave at heart!’ Like my dad.” Snape made a small, disparaging noise. James turned on him. “Got a problem with that?” “No,” said Snape, though his slight sneer said otherwise. “If you’d rather be brawny than brainy —” “Where’re you hoping to go, seeing as you’re neither?” interjected Sirius.
Depression isn't just being a bit sad. It's feeling nothing. It's not wanting to be alive anymore.
I tell you, that dragon's the most horrible animal I've ever met, but the way Hagrid goes on about it, you'd think it was a fluffy little bunny rabbit.
Imagine losing fingernails, Harry! That really puts our sufferings into perspective, doesn't it?
The consequences of our actions are always so complicated, so diverse, that predicting the future is a very difficult business indeed.
Similar quotes
I think that when memoir goes wrong, it goes wrong from too much memory, too much detail. It's about clearing all that away and just getting to the story.
Put simply the novel stands between us and the hardening concept of statistical man. There is no other medium in which we can live for so long and so intimately with a character. That is the service a novel renders.
Each book, intuitively sensed and, in the case of fiction, intuitively worked out, stands on what has gone before, and grows out of it. I feel that at any stage of my literary career it could have been said that the last book contained all the others.
When a reader falls in love with a book, it leaves its essence inside him, like radioactive fallout in an arable field, and after that there are certain crops that will no longer grow in him, while other, stranger, more fantastic growths may occasionally be produced.
And okay, fair enough, but there is this unwritten contract between author and reader and I think not ending your book kind of violates that contract.
Literature is a defense against the attacks of life. It says to life: You can't deceive me. I know your habits, foresee and enjoy watching all your reactions, and steal your secret by involving you in cunning obstructions that halt your normal flow.