J.K. Rowling Harvard Commencement Address (2008)

On June 5, 2008, British author J.K. Rowling delivered the commencement address at Harvard University's annual meeting of the Harvard Alumni Association. Titled The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination, the address explored how hitting rock bottom stripped away the inessential, enabling her to focus entirely on writing. Drawing on her early employment at Amnesty International in London, Rowling also emphasized that imagination is not merely the capacity to invent fiction, but the moral power to empathize with people whose experiences one has never shared.

Text from OyList