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I loved fantasy, but I particularly loved the stories in which somebody got out of where they were and into somewhere better – as in the Chronicles Of Narnia, The Wizard Of Oz, The Phantom Tollbooth, the Dungeons & Dragons cartoon.

Lev Grossman

I feel very conscious of my influences. T.H. White is very important for me.
LEV GROSSMAN

Important Influence White
The main advantage of being a reviewer is that you read a lot. A lot of books get sent to you, and you have an amazing vantage point from which to observe what’s going on in contemporary fiction – not only genre stuff, the whole spectrum.
LEV GROSSMAN

Book Contemporary Fiction Stuff
I recognize that on paper, you can’t really tell that I’m a fan or a nerd.
LEV GROSSMAN

Fans Nerd Paper Trouble
Careful what you hunt, lest you catch it.
LEV GROSSMAN

Careful Catch Hunts Lest
The danger would be going back, or staying still. The only way out was through. The past was ruins, but the present was still in play.
LEV GROSSMAN

Past Play Ruin Stay
We have reached the point where ignorance and neglect are the best we can hope for in a ruler.
LEV GROSSMAN

Ignorance Neglect Rulers
A magician is strong because he feels the pain between what the world is and what he would make of it.
LEV GROSSMAN

Magical Pain Strong World
Supposedly I’ve got traces of an English accent, though I can’t hear it. I must have inherited it from my mother, who’s English, and then I think it was exacerbated by the fact that I live with an Australian.
LEV GROSSMAN

Exacerbated Facts Mother Thinking
In a way fighting was just like using magic. You said the words, and they altered the universe. By merely speaking you could create damage and pain, cause tears to fall, drive people away, make yourself feel better, make your life worse.
LEV GROSSMAN

Damage Fall Fighting Merely Pain
I’ve only read three books by Stephen King. When I was 10 I read ‘The Long Walk,’ one of his pseudonymous Bachman books. In my early 20s, while trapped on a family vacation, I read ‘The Dark Half,’ which taught me a word I have never forgotten: psychopomp. Now I have read ’11/22/63.’
LEV GROSSMAN

Book Dark Kings Pseudonymous
Escapism has value, even if I don’t know what its value is, exactly. Maybe it’s just part of some healthy way that we deal with the world.
LEV GROSSMAN

Healthy Way World
Maybe there’s a sense that technology isn’t necessarily the answer to a lot of our problems. Fantasy offers readers a less radically alienated world – a world where desires and feelings that normally are trapped inside your mind are made real in the form of magic.
LEV GROSSMAN

Feelings Real Technology
You’re all so obsessed with other worlds, you’re so convinced that this one is crap and everywhere else is great, but you’ve never bothered to figure out what’s going on here!
LEV GROSSMAN

Contentment Obsessed Other Worlds
I feel that’s one of the central questions of fantasy. What did we lose when we entered the 20th and 21st century, and how can we mourn what we lost, and what can we replace it with? We’re still asking those questions in an urgent way.
LEV GROSSMAN

Asking Fantasy Way
The process of learning is a nonstop orgy of wonderment.
LEV GROSSMAN

Learning Nonstop Process Wonderment
Magic: it was what happened when the mind met the world, and the mind won for a change.
LEV GROSSMAN

Magic Mind World

I loved fantasy, but I particularly loved the stories in which somebody got out of where they were and into somewhere better – as in the Chronicles Of Narnia, The Wizard Of Oz, The Phantom Tollbooth, the Dungeons & Dragons cartoon.

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I loved fantasy, but I particularly loved the stories in which somebody got out of where they were and into somewhere better – as in the Chronicles Of Narnia, The Wizard Of Oz, The Phantom Tollbooth, the Dungeons & Dragons cartoon.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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