Lev GrossmanMost people are blind to magic. They move thru a blank and empty world. They’re bored with their lives and there’s nothing they can do about it. They’re eaten alive by longing and… ▶353DeathHumanityLife
Lev GrossmanThe truth doesn't always make a good story, does it? ✨ Lev Grossman (2009). The Magicians: A Novel, p.378, Penguin375ReadingTruth
Lev GrossmanIt's a great thing when you feel that you recognize yourself, deeply and movingly, in a work of literature.366Reading
Lev GrossmanMaybe this was one of those times when being a hero didn’t involve looking particularly brave. It was just doing what you should. ✨ Lev Grossman (2015). The Magicians Trilog… ▶333Time
Lev GrossmanThat’s what death did, it treated you like a child, like everything you had ever thought and done and cared about was just a child’s game, to be crumpled up and thrown away when i… ▶322DeathThought
Lev GrossmanCareful what you hunt, lest you catch it. ✨ The Magician King. Book by Lev Grossman, August 09, 2011.323Reading
Lev GrossmanBy 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 d… ▶356Reflection
Lev GrossmanWhen the oldest Chatwin, melancholy Martin, opens the cabinet of the grandfather clock that stands in a dark, narrow back hallway in his aunt’s house and slip through into Fillory… ▶378Reading
Lev GrossmanIn 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 peo… ▶379HumanityLifeSadness
Lev GrossmanIt was so much easier to be angry. Being angry made him feel strong, even though-- and this contradiction did nothing to diminish his anger-- he was angry only because his positio… ▶357Reading
Lev GrossmanDon't take anyone's writing advice too seriously.313Thought
Lev GrossmanShe tortured everybody around her, but only because she was more tortured than anyone. ✨ Lev Grossman (2015). The Magicians Trilogy, p.90, Penguin291Truth
Lev GrossmanI went to college at Harvard, then did three years of graduate school at Yale. At both places I studied comparative literature. People find it odd that I went to both Harvard and … ▶314DeathHumanityReading
Lev GrossmanHow often have I met and disliked writers whose books I love; and conversely, hated the books and then wound up liking the writer? Too often.347LoveReading
Lev GrossmanThat was the thing about the world: it wasn't that things were harder than you thought they were going to be, it was that they were hard in ways that you didn't expect. ✨ Le… ▶3710Thought
Lev GrossmanI'm happy to report that 'The New Press' is still in business to this day. But not thanks to me. I was a really bad publishing intern.348Death
Lev GrossmanI never thought about doing a sequel when I was actually writing 'The Magicians.' I only ever considered it a standalone.282ReflectionThought
Lev GrossmanThe 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 … ▶293PoliticsReadingTruth
Lev GrossmanHe who completes a quest does not merely find something. He becomes something. ✨ Lev Grossman (2011). The Magician King: A Novel, p.251, Penguin3610Reading
Lev GrossmanShe still had her bad days, no question, when the black dog of depression sniffed her out and settled its crushing weight on her chest and breathed its pungent dog breath in her f… ▶359Sadness
Lev GrossmanMagic: it was what happened when the mind met the world, and the mind won for a change. ✨ Lev Grossman (2015). The Magicians Trilogy, p.482, Penguin304Thought
Lev GrossmanDo you promise to hate my parents as much as I do? Oh, absolutely, Quentin said. Maybe even more. ✨ Lev Grossman (2009). The Magicians: A Novel, p.200, Penguin3610Reading
Lev GrossmanThe process of learning is a nonstop orgy of wonderment. ✨ Lev Grossman (2009). The Magicians: A Novel, p.55, Penguin348Reading
Lev GrossmanUntil now, I've been a kind of binge-writer - I'll carve out five or six hours on a weekend day and make a large container of espresso and just bang out a lot of words.272Thought
Lev GrossmanI've stayed in houses that were in the country, and in England, but I'm still not sure that I've stayed in an English country house.349Philosophy
Lev GrossmanI recognize that on paper, you can't really tell that I'm a fan or a nerd. ✨ Interview with Jason Heller, www.avclub.com. August 26, 2009.349Truth
Lev GrossmanWe have lived too long. The great days are past. ✨ Lev Grossman (2015). The Magicians Trilogy, p.243, Penguin272Time
Lev GrossmanMy book group has one rule: no books for adults. We read young adult fiction only.306Reading
Lev GrossmanA 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 int… ▶251Death
Lev GrossmanThere is really no end to life's little humiliations. ✨ Lev Grossman (2015). The Magicians Trilogy, p.79, Penguin273Life
