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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

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

Cartoon Dragons Wizards
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.
LEV GROSSMAN

Asking Fantasy Way
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
My book group has one rule: no books for adults. We read young adult fiction only.
LEV GROSSMAN

Adults Book Groups
It’s an engrossing look at the way the flow of information shapes history-as well as a rare glimpse into the soul of the hardcore geek
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Glimpse Looks Soul
A magician is strong because he feels the pain between what the world is and what he would make of it.
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Magical Pain Strong World
Don’t take anyone’s writing advice too seriously.
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Advice Seriously Writing
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
He who completes a quest does not merely find something. He becomes something.
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Complete Merely Quest Something
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.
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Hero Real Sidekicks Villian
A novel with a bad middle is a bad book. A bad ending is something I’ve just gotten in the habit of forgiving.
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Book Forgiving Habit
Josh speculated about the hypothetical contents of an imaginary porn magazine for intelligent trees that would be entitled Enthouse.
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Enthcuse Intelligent Tree
Magic is wild, dangerous stuff. You never realize how useful limitations are until it’s much too late.
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Late Magic Stuff Too
I feel very conscious of my influences. T.H. White is very important for me.
LEV GROSSMAN

Important Influence White
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
Careful what you hunt, lest you catch it.
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Careful Catch Hunts Lest
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
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
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
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
The truth doesn’t always make a good story, does it?
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Good Make Stories
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
It turns out that there is something that can compete with free: easy.
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Easy Turnsm Something
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
We have lived too long. The great days are past.
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Day Great Long Past
People – me included – want to get excited about books. Good books are a good thing.
LEV GROSSMAN

Book People Want

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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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Lev Grossman Quotes