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The real world is horrible.

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.
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Cartoon Dragons Wizards
I studied the cello for a long time, from when I was little up through college.
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College Littles Long Study
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
I came from an anxious, overly intense East Coast academic family. That was the way of our tribe.
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East Tribe Way
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
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
I love playing with the conventions of fantasy, and breaking rules, and crossing lines.
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Breaking Crossing Line Lines Rules
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
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.
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Book Country House
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
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
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.
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Long Perfect Thinking
Careful what you hunt, lest you catch it.
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Careful Catch Hunts Lest
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.
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Annoyed Enough Should Something
You’re saying the gods don’t have free will.” “The power to make mistakes,” Penny said. “Only we have that. Mortals
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Choices Mistakes Pennies
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.
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Feelings Real Technology
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
Don’t take anyone’s writing advice too seriously.
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Advice Seriously Writing
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.’
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Book Dark Kings Pseudonymous
People – me included – want to get excited about books. Good books are a good thing.
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Book People Want
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!
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Contentment Obsessed Other Worlds
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
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
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
We have reached the point where ignorance and neglect are the best we can hope for in a ruler.
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Ignorance Neglect Rulers
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
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

The real world is horrible.

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The real world is horrible.

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