Joanne "Jo" Rowling, popularly known in her pen name "J.K. Rowling", is a British novelist who has written the famous Harry Potter. fantasy series, which sold more than 400 million copies and won multiple awards. But Rowling is also an inspiration to many because of her rags to riches story, in this commencement address she shared the benefits of failure and what it has taught her that led to her success in life, the true value of imagination and friends.
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"The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination"
Commencement Address of J.K. Rowling (author of the best selling Harry Potter Book Series) during the Annual Meeting of the Harvard Alumni Association, June 2008
The first thing I would like to say is ‘thank you.’ Not only has Harvard given me an extraordinary honour, but the weeks of fear and nausea I have endured at the thought of giving this commencement address have made me lose weight. A win-win situation! Now all I have to do is take deep breaths, squint at the red banners and convince myself that I am at the world’s largest Gryffindor reunion.
Delivering a commencement address is a great responsibility; or so I thought until I cast my mind back to my own graduation. The commencement speaker that day was the distinguished British philosopher Baroness Mary Warnock. Reflecting on her speech has helped me enormously in writing this one, because it turns out that I can’t remember a single word she said. This liberating discovery enables me to proceed without any fear that I might inadvertently influence you to abandon promising careers in business, the law or politics for the giddy delights of becoming a gay wizard.