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I love playing with the conventions of fantasy, and breaking rules, and crossing lines.

Lev Grossman

He wasn’t surprised. He was used to this anticlimactic feeling, where by the time you’ve done all the work to get something you don’t even want it anymore.
LEV GROSSMAN

Anticlimactic Done Feelings Something Want
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
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
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.
LEV GROSSMAN

Doors Real Secret Stop Waiting
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

Fun Growing People Up
Magic is wild, dangerous stuff. You never realize how useful limitations are until it’s much too late.
LEV GROSSMAN

Late Magic Stuff Too
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
The truth doesn’t always make a good story, does it?
LEV GROSSMAN

Good Make Stories
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
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
It turns out that there is something that can compete with free: easy.
LEV GROSSMAN

Easy Turnsm Something
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
I came from an anxious, overly intense East Coast academic family. That was the way of our tribe.
LEV GROSSMAN

East Tribe Way
I studied the cello for a long time, from when I was little up through college.
LEV GROSSMAN

College Littles Long Study
Do you promise to hate my parents as much as I do?” “Oh, absolutely,” Quentin said. “Maybe even more.
LEV GROSSMAN

Hate Parent Promise
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
His whole personality was like an elaborate joke that he never stopped telling.
LEV GROSSMAN

Jokes Personality Whole
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
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.
LEV GROSSMAN

Destined Ends Forgotten Majority
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
Don’t take anyone’s writing advice too seriously.
LEV GROSSMAN

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

Important Influence White
We have lived too long. The great days are past.
LEV GROSSMAN

Day Great Long Past
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 love playing with the conventions of fantasy, and breaking rules, and crossing lines.

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I love playing with the conventions of fantasy, and breaking rules, and crossing lines.

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Popular Authors

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