Harry Potter Author Gives Harvard Commencement Address

Posted on June 8, 2008 by iPouya

Excerpt: “…the 42-year-old author confessed that ‘I have wracked my mind and heart for what I ought to say to you today. ‘Rowling came up with two themes, captured neatly in the title of the address itself: ‘The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination.’ Failure came fast. ‘A mere seven years after my graduation day,’ she said, ‘I had failed on an epic scale.’ Shattered by the end of a brief marriage, jobless, and a single mother, Rowling said she was ‘as poor as it is possible to be in modern Britain, without being homeless.’ But adversity uncovered personal strengths that immediate success or comfort might never have revealed: her strong will, ‘more discipline than I had suspected,’ she said, and ‘friends whose value was truly above the price of rubies.’ Failure also stripped away the inessential, said Rowling, who signed her first (and very modest) book contract in 1996. What was essential had remained. ‘I was set free,’ she said. ‘I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored; and I had an old typewriter and a big idea.’ Rowling finished writing the first Potter book in Edinburgh coffee shops. ‘Rock bottom,’ she said, ‘became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.’

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19 Responses to Harry Potter Author Gives Harvard Commencement Address

  1. jewish-zionist says:
    June 10, 2008 at 2:02 pm

    “The victorious Democratic presidential candidate said Jerusalem must remain the undivided capital of Israel, and said any Israel-Palestinian peace deal must preserve Israel’s integrity as a Jewish state. … Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Wednesday that presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama’s show of support for the Jewish state was ‘very moving.'”

    I bet Pouya loves Obama even more now!! Hahaha!!! : )~~~

  2. iPouya says:
    June 10, 2008 at 5:59 pm

    He later clarified his Jerusalem comment as something that is ultimately to be negotiated between the Zionist state and the native Palestinians. And yes, he’s pandering to the Jewish vote, namely in Florida. Nobody said he’s perfect.

  3. jewish-zionist says:
    June 10, 2008 at 6:27 pm

    Nobody said he’s perfect? The man said that growing up he was deeply inspired by Zionism. If that’s not terrible for you (or wonderful for me) I don’t know what is…

  4. :) says:
    June 10, 2008 at 8:29 pm

    In all, it is difficult to know what Obama believes. He seems like a lying, scheming politician. Its far easier to, say, figure out that Israel’s GDP/capita is relative to other countries. JZ, unable to do that, is apparently able to read Obama’s mind. Baby steps, oh Zionist foreign agent, baby steps.
    By the way, how is Azadeh doing fat Arash? Making love to other men?

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    September 19, 2008 at 5:23 pm

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  10. John833 says:
    September 19, 2008 at 7:44 pm

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