A name and a cultural icon who has become synonymous with any story that involves magic being conjured through a wound, J.K. Rowling rocked the literary world in 1997 with the publishing of the first of her seven books in The Harry Potter franchise.
Currently the United Kingdom's foremost bestselling author, Rowling's literary journey also stands out as one of the most prominent real life "rags to riches" stories. Separating from her husband in what many suspect to have been domestic abuse, Rowling moved to Edinburgh with nothing but a dependent daughter and the first three chapters of what would become Harry Potter in her suitcase. Living off state benefits and attending a teacher training course, the native of Gloucestershire wrote out of coffee shops and cafes in the midst of battling clinical depression before her manuscript for "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" was accepted Bloomsbury Publishing.
From someone who began nearer to rockbottom then most, here are five touching quotes strong enough to pull anybody back onto their feet:
1. "Whether you come back by page or by the big screen, Hogwarts will always be there to welcome you home."
No matter how many twists and turns gird your path, or turns that lead you to more twisted places, darker places, there will always be something within you the darkness cannot touch. Something full of magic. A magic that paves a path towards home.
2. "It is our choices... that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities."
It is not absolute power that determines the sum of who we are, but rather, how and for what we use it that may yield a powerful sum.
3. "We do not need magic to transform our world. We carry all of the power we need in ourselves already."
We don't have to conjure a patronus from the tip of a wound to prove we are magical, we are the magic - the hope, the perseverance, and the courage - which drives the dementors away.
4. "It takes a great deal of courage to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends."
Its always easy to see and acknowledge the flaws of our adversaries. However, the fear of creating one more often hinders our ability to admit the shortcomings that reside in those more likely to stand beside us.
5. "Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remember to turn on the light."
As long, and as wide as the shadow may stretch, somewhere within the darkness it casts - no matter how dark - lies the switch. So turn it on. It may still linger along the walls and behind the closet, but you'll find its as scared as you are.
Conquering her dementors and death eaters to arrive at a higher place from where she still resides, J.K. Rowling - through the fictionalization of her pain and travail into words, into pages, into a story, until now, it has become a world of its own - reminds us that although there may be a time where our Voldemorts and Grindelwalds wreak havoc with the darkness of twists and turns, therein within ourselves lies a greater magic. To conjure twists and turns of our own. Twists which turn us back on to the path of Hogwarts.
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