black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

The problem with growing up is that once you’re grown up, the people who aren’t grown up aren’t fun anymore.

Lev Grossman

A novel with a bad middle is a bad book. A bad ending is something I’ve just gotten in the habit of forgiving.
LEV GROSSMAN

Book Forgiving Habit
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
You’re saying the gods don’t have free will.” “The power to make mistakes,” Penny said. “Only we have that. Mortals
LEV GROSSMAN

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

Important Influence White
My book group has one rule: no books for adults. We read young adult fiction only.
LEV GROSSMAN

Adults Book Groups
The real problem with being around James was that he was always the hero. And what did that make you? Either the sidekick or the villain.
LEV GROSSMAN

Hero Real Sidekicks Villian
I studied the cello for a long time, from when I was little up through college.
LEV GROSSMAN

College Littles Long Study
It turns out that there is something that can compete with free: easy.
LEV GROSSMAN

Easy Turnsm Something
His whole personality was like an elaborate joke that he never stopped telling.
LEV GROSSMAN

Jokes Personality Whole
Young minds – young brains – need stories and ideas like the ones in those [censored and banned] books in order to grow. They need ideas that you disagree with. They need ideas that I disagree with. Or they’ll never be able to figure out what ideas they believe in.
LEV GROSSMAN

Believe Book Need Order Stories
The truth doesn’t always make a good story, does it?
LEV GROSSMAN

Good Make Stories
His crush went from exciting to depressing, as if he’d gone from the first blush of infatuation to the terminal nostalgia of a former lover without even the temporary relief of an actual relationship in between.
LEV GROSSMAN

Crush Depressing relief
Some of the comments on YouTube make you weep for the future of humanity just for the spelling alone, never mind the obscenity and the naked hatred.
LEV GROSSMAN

Hatred Humanity Mind Naked
The new Web is a very different thing. It’s a tool for bringing together the small contributions of millions of people and making them matter. Silicon Valley consultants call it Web 2.0, as if it were a new version of some old software. But it’s really a revolution.
LEV GROSSMAN

Contribute Different People Silicon Small Together
I love playing with the conventions of fantasy, and breaking rules, and crossing lines.
LEV GROSSMAN

Breaking Crossing Line Lines Rules
He who completes a quest does not merely find something. He becomes something.
LEV GROSSMAN

Complete Merely Quest Something
The process of learning is a nonstop orgy of wonderment.
LEV GROSSMAN

Learning Nonstop Process Wonderment
Careful what you hunt, lest you catch it.
LEV GROSSMAN

Careful Catch Hunts Lest
A big silvery janitor. Penny, this can’t be how the universe works.” “In the Order we call it ‘inverse profundity.’ We’ve observed it in any number of cases. The deeper you go into the cosmic mysteries, the less interesting everything gets.
LEV GROSSMAN

Interesting Numbers Observed Order
I think for a long time, I was paralyzed by some of my hopes and ideals for what my life was going to be like. I had this perfect vision of how my life should go, but it seemed – it was – impossible to realize, so I sat around for a long, long time doing almost nothing at all.
LEV GROSSMAN

Long Perfect Thinking
The real world is horrible.
LEV GROSSMAN

Horrible Real World
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
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
Magic is wild, dangerous stuff. You never realize how useful limitations are until it’s much too late.
LEV GROSSMAN

Late Magic Stuff Too
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
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
By now he had learned enough to know that when he was getting annoyed at somebody else, it was usually because there was something that he himself should be doing, and he wasn’t doing it.
LEV GROSSMAN

Annoyed Enough Should Something

The problem with growing up is that once you’re grown up, the people who aren’t grown up aren’t fun anymore.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

The problem with growing up is that once you’re grown up, the people who aren’t grown up aren’t fun anymore.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Lev Grossman Quotes