Highlights from an Associated Press interview with J.K. Rowling:

On her young fans:

“I have signed for thousands of children and I can honestly say I have met one badly behaved child. She sticks in my mind because she was the only one, ever. Adults are a different story, but kids – amazing.”

On criticism of the books from Christians in Britain and the United States:

“I had one letter from a vicar in England – this is the difference – saying would I please not put Christmas trees at Hogwarts as it was clearly a pagan society. Meanwhile, I’m having death threats when I’m on tour in America.”

On Harry Potter fan Web sites:

“Isn’t it amazing and wonderful that people are that excited about it? But when people start fire-bombing each other in cyberspace over the romantic relationship of two fictional characters, then it starts getting a little bit weird and scary.”

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On fan-written fiction about Harry Potter:

“I never read fan fiction, because you do feel slightly as though they’ve come into your house and started moving your furniture around. And I don’t want to feel that way. So in principle it’s fine and it’s creative and it stimulates literacy – but I just don’t want to know what they’re doing in my house.”

On Harry Potter movie merchandise:

“Warner Bros. have been really rather wonderful in asking me, ‘Do you hate this?’ And I’ve said a couple of times, ‘Yeah, I hate that.’ The funniest one ever – it was a product proposal that was sent to them – was a Moaning Myrtle lavatory seat. We’ve got the plans for it framed in the office loo.”

On security surrounding the final chapter of the last book, written years ago:

“I allowed everyone to believe it was in a safe, but I’ve been losing that on and off for years. I lose notebooks left, right and center, I’ve left things in cafes. I’ve been quite careless with everything, looking back.”


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