J.K. Rowling delivered the spring commencement speech at Harvard University yesterday. The acclaimed author made an appeal to the students to use the power they will most likely have in the future to help the powerless and the needy.

Rowling, who has been poor herself until the Harry Potter books have become a world best seller, spoke about the days when she had to go on public assistance to be able to feed her daughter. The author also said that this experience, the darkest one in her life, made her stronger, because she realized that she can always survive even the greatest challenges, and that clinging to one’s hope is the best thing one can do.

The speech started on a humorous note, when J.K. Rowling said that thanks to the fact that she doesn’t remember a word of the speech she heard when she graduated has motivated her and made her feel O.K. with delivering a speech at Harvard.

She joked by saying that this way she feels comfortable knowing there is no danger for the people who have dreamed all their life of becoming mathematicians or economists to blow their careers away by deciding to go for writing after hearing her speak to them.

The British writer, who is now a billionaire, was extremely well received at Harvard, where some students even came with brooms and wizard costumes as a sign of appreciation for her. The idea of the character that made her world famous has come to her while riding a train back home, and she wrote the first book of the Harry Potter series for her daughter, Jessica.