“They see it for what it is… It is a fantasy world and they understand that completely.”
As quoted in "Success of Harry Potter bowls author over" at CNN.com (21 October 1999) http://www.cnn.com/books/news/9910/21/rowling.intvu/; also quoted in "Urban Legends Reference Pages : Harry Potter" at Snopes.com http://www.snopes.com/humor/iftrue/potter.asp
1990s
Context: I absolutely did not start writing these books to encourage any child into witchcraft. … I'm laughing slightly because to me, the idea is absurd.
I have met thousands of children now, and not even one time has a child come up to me and said, "Ms. Rowling, I'm so glad I've read these books because now I want to be a witch." They see it for what it is... It is a fantasy world and they understand that completely.
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Joanne K. Rowling 29
British novelist, author of the Harry Potter series 1965Related quotes
Nature and the Greeks (1954)
Context: The scientific world-picture vouchsafes a very complete understanding of all that happens — it makes it just a little too understandable. It allows you to imagine the total display as that of a mechanical clockwork which, for all that science knows, could go on just the same as it does, without there being consciousness, will, endeavor, pain and delight and responsibility connected with it — though they actually are. And the reason for this disconcerting situation is just this: that for the purpose of constructing the picture of the external world, we have used the greatly simplifying device of cutting our own personality out, removing it; hence it is gone, it has evaporated, it is ostensibly not needed.
“Fantasy is hardly an escape from reality. It's a way of understanding it.”
A Visit with Lloyd Alexander https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GilIovrb4uE&feature=youtu.be&t=5m43s (1994)
“It takes a few days to complete cycling the world,
but it takes forever to understand its ways”
Source: Sweetest song I know
Book 1, Chapter 2 “The Pearl at the Heart of the World” (p. 139)
The Elric Cycle, The Fortress of the Pearl (1989)
Source: Who Is Man? (1965), Ch. 5<!-- The sense of the ineffable, p. 88 -->
Context: Our concern with environment cannot be reduced to what can be used, to what can be grasped. Environment includes not only the inkstand and the blotting paper, but also the impenetrable stillness in the air, the stars, the clouds, the quiet passing of time, the wonder of my own being. I am an end as well as a means, and so is the world: an end as well as a means. My view of the world and my understanding of the self determine each other. The complete manipulation of the world results in the complete instrumentalization of the self.
“… fantasy is not practice for what is real—fantasy is the opiate of women.”
Source: Austenland
“I have to understand the world, you see.”
Part 4: "From Cornell to Caltech, With A Touch of Brazil", "Certainly, Mr. Big!", p. 231
Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! (1985)
“See what happens when the brain is completely still.”
Source: 1970s, The Urgency of Change (1970), p. 184
Context: The brain is the source of thought. The brain is matter and thought is matter. Can the brain — with all its reactions and its immediate responses to every challenge and demand — can the brain be very still? It is not a question of ending thought, but of whether the brain can be completely still? This stillness is not physical death. See what happens when the brain is completely still. <!-- π