"I don't really like fantasy. It's not so much that I don't like it, I haven't really read a lot of it. I have read Lord of the Rings, though. I read that when I was about 14. I didn't read The Hobbit until I was in my 20s--much later. I'd started Harry Potter by then, and someone gave it to me, and I thought, Yeah, I really should read this, because people kept saying, 'You've read The Hobbit, obviously?' And I was saying, 'Um, no.' So I thought, Well, I will, and I did, and it was wonderful. [Sheepish smile]"

J.K. Rowling
quoted from an interview in Newsweek, July 10, 2000