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The truth doesn’t always make a good story, does it?

Lev Grossman

The paradox of the English country house is that its state of permanent decline, the fact that its heyday is always behind it, is part of the seduction, just as it is part of the seduction of books in general.
LEV GROSSMAN

Book Country House
I studied the cello for a long time, from when I was little up through college.
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College Littles Long Study
I feel very conscious of my influences. T.H. White is very important for me.
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Important Influence White
The process of learning is a nonstop orgy of wonderment.
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Learning Nonstop Process Wonderment
The problem with growing up is that once you’re grown up, the people who aren’t grown up aren’t fun anymore.
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Fun Growing People Up
Don’t take anyone’s writing advice too seriously.
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Advice Seriously Writing
I love playing with the conventions of fantasy, and breaking rules, and crossing lines.
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Breaking Crossing Line Lines Rules
The novel is a highly corrupt medium, after all – in the end the vast majority of them simply aren’t that great, and are destined to be forgotten.
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Destined Ends Forgotten Majority
He who completes a quest does not merely find something. He becomes something.
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Complete Merely Quest Something
I recognize that on paper, you can’t really tell that I’m a fan or a nerd.
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Fans Nerd Paper Trouble
Do you promise to hate my parents as much as I do?” “Oh, absolutely,” Quentin said. “Maybe even more.
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Hate Parent Promise
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.
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Crush Depressing relief
We have lived too long. The great days are past.
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Day Great Long Past
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.
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Hatred Humanity Mind Naked
Magic: it was what happened when the mind met the world, and the mind won for a change.
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Magic Mind 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.
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Healthy Way World
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.
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Contribute Different People Silicon Small Together
My book group has one rule: no books for adults. We read young adult fiction only.
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Adults Book Groups
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.
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Damage Fall Fighting Merely Pain
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.
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Exacerbated Facts Mother Thinking
Stop looking for the next secret door that is going to lead you to your real life. Stop waiting. This is it: there’s nothing else.
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Doors Real Secret Stop Waiting
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.
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Past Play Ruin Stay
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.
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Believe Book Need Order Stories
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.
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Asking Fantasy Way
His whole personality was like an elaborate joke that he never stopped telling.
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Jokes Personality Whole
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.
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Interesting Numbers Observed Order
Josh speculated about the hypothetical contents of an imaginary porn magazine for intelligent trees that would be entitled Enthouse.
LEV GROSSMAN

Enthcuse Intelligent Tree

The truth doesn’t always make a good story, does it?

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The truth doesn’t always make a good story, does it?

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