What Jo says about...
Book 1: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (Sorceror's Stone) ©1997UK ©1998US

Please note: unless you see quotemarks, these are summaries, and not JKR's words themselves. Please see the linked article for the actual text.

• Character of Harry came into her head "fully formed" and she worked backwards to create the stories. [Read the exact quote from WBUR interview, 1999]
• 10 different first chapters were written for PS/SS [Read the entire quote from The Star-Ledger, 1999]
• Jo had to remove a chess scene from Book 1 that featured Ron winning by using "a particularly violent bishop." [Read the exact quote from The Herald, 2000]
• Book 1 is purposefully fairly gentle, because Harry is very protected when he enters the world. [Read the entire quote from Time Magazine, 2000]
• Her favorite bits of the books: The ending of GoF, Chapter 12 of SS/PS, the final rescue scene in CoS, and Remus Lupin in PoA. Books 2 and 4 are her favorites overall, which is weird, because "they were the most difficult to write." [Read the whole quote from the Houston Chronicle, 2001]
• JKR wrote platform 9 ¾ whilst in Manchester and wrongly visualized the platforms of Kings Cross and Euston. [Read the exact quote from "Harry Potter and Me," 2001]
• If all the 15 discarded opening chapters of book1 were put together they would almost give the whole story away. [Read the exact quote from "Harry Potter and Me," 2001]
• JKR: "The Mirror of Erised is absolutely entirely drawn from my own experience of losing a parent. "Five more minutes, just please God, give me five more minutes." It’ll never be enough." [Read the exact quote from "Harry Potter and Me," 2001]
• The point of Book 1's Chapter Ten is that death is "tougher on the living and you’ve just got to get past it." Death is the books' "most important theme." [Read the exact quote from "Harry Potter and Me," 2001]
• There were several discarded opening chapters for PS/SS, one of which had a muggle betraying the Potters, one had a character called "Pyrites", whose name means "fools gold" meeting Sirius in front of the Potter's house. Pyrites was a servant of Voldemort. The very, very earliest drafts had the Potters living on a remote island, and Hermione's dad seeing an explosion out at sea. He sailed out and found their bodies in the ruins of their house.[Read the exact quote from Jo's website]
• JKR came close to using a chapter very like the opening one of book 6 in PS/SS, PoA and OotP. But it didn't fit properly until now. [Read the exact quote from Jo's website]
• JK won’t tell us if anyone else was present in Godric’s Hollow the night Harry’s parents were killed. [Read the entire quote from the Leaky Cauldron, 2005]
• Dumbledore and Flamel "became friends during Dumbledore's lifetime, they hadn't been friends from boyhood." [Read the whole quote from ITV, 2005]
• She gave Harry a fortune as she was poor at the time and wanted him to have a lot. It was wishful thinking. [Read the whole quote from ITV, 2005]
• Jo thinks that the Book 1 scene where Voldemort appears in the back of Quirrell's head is "one of the creepiest things I have ever written." [Read the whole quote from R&J, 2006]
• The Book 1 "Mirror of Erised" chapter is one of Jo's "favourite chapters in the whole series." [Read the whole quote from R&J, 2006]
• MORE: book 2 | book 3 | book 4 | book 5 | book 6 | book 7 | after book 7