Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ll know that J.K. Rowling is a living genius of the 21st Century. Everything that she says or writes oozes wisdom, inspiration and a little bit of magic. Which is why we’ve decided to team some of our favourite J.K quotes from the Harry Potter series with various London-related situations. They seem to go hand in hand – from the severe and serious to the trivial and mundane – just like magic…
1. When an elderly person gets on the tube and you’ve only just got yourself a seat…
– Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
2. When you’re trying to make up your mind about … Boris Johnson
“If you want to know what a man’s like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.” – Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
3. When the humble cereal goes from staple breakfast food, to an overpriced hipster necessity.
“It matters not what someone is born, but what they grow to be” – Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
4. Whenever you get a ‘memories’ notification from Facebook and are faced with a younger, slimmer, more carefree version of yourself
“Youth cannot know how age thinks and feels.” – Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
5. The 24th June comes to mind with this one…
“Humans do have a knack of choosing precisely those things that are worst for them.” – Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone
6. When you want to get an outside table at The Ship in Wandsworth.
“Anything is possible if you’ve got enough nerve” – Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince
7. When you need to refuse your mates a night out in Shoreditch…
– Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone
8. When you realise you have to change at Bank.
“Fear of a name increases fear of the thing itself.” – Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone
9. The bartenders’ chat at The Cocktail Trading Co…
– Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone
10. When your friend survives the porter loo queue at Notting Hill Carnival.
“Oh well… I’d just been thinking, if you had died, you’d have been welcome to share my toilet.” – Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
11. You every month on rent day.
– Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
12. When you fail to convince yourself that you’re only having one midweek G&T…
“I solemnly swear that I am up to no good.” – Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
13. The pep talk you need should you venture to Oxford Street…
“Don’t let muggles get you down.” – Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
14. When you experience some of your fellow (drunk) Londoners on the night bus…
“Anyone can speak Troll. All you have to do is point and grunt.”- Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
15. Living in the multicultural melting pot that is London.
“Differences of habit and language are nothing at all if our aims are identical and our hearts are open.” – Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
16. When you find the second Oyster Card you cancelled that year… and it was underneath your phone case the whole time.
“Things we lose have a way of coming back to us in the end, if not always in the way we expect.” – Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
17. The moment you step back and realise how wonderful London is.
“We do not need magic to transform our world. We carry all the power we need inside ourselves already. We have the power to imagine better.” – Harvard Commencement Address