The truth doesn't always make a good story, does it? Lev Grossman More Quotes by Lev Grossman More Quotes From Lev Grossman Quentin had an obsolete sailing ship that had been raised from the dead. He had psychotically effective swordsman and an enigmatic witch-queen. It wasn't the Fellowship of the Ring, but then again he wasn't trying to save the world from Sauron, he was trying to perform a tax audit on a bunch of hick islanders. Lev Grossman sailing queens trying I have no doubt there are magician psychopaths, and magician serial killers. I doubt Brakebills admissions is very good at screening for those. Lev Grossman serial-killer killers doubt 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 contemporary-fiction stuff book There is really no end to life's little humiliations. Lev Grossman humiliation ends littles 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 would-be play past He who completes a quest does not merely find something. He becomes something. Lev Grossman quests doe 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 real waiting doors 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 wizards dragons cartoon I always hated those fantasy books where, at the end, all the kids had to go home. At the end of a Narnia book, you always got shown the door. Same with The Wizard Of Oz and The Phantom Tollbooth. You get kicked out of your magic land. It's like, "By the way, here's your next surprise: You get to go home!" And the kids are all like, "Yay, we get to go home!" I never bought that. Did anybody buy that? Lev Grossman home kids book I don't know if I've ever derived such an immediate sense of calm and well-being from any book as I did from 'Right Ho, Jeeves.' It was like I was Pac-Man and the book was a power-up. Lev Grossman jeeves men book Everybody wanted to be the hero of their own story. Nobody wanted to be comic relief. Lev Grossman relief hero stories Being a hero, the man had observed, is largely a matter of knowing one’s cues. Lev Grossman knowing hero men 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. Lev Grossman healthy way world It turns out that there is something that can compete with free: easy. Lev Grossman turns easy I used to write in a local coffee shop, but there was another guy, another writer, who kept sitting in my favorite seat. I would show up, and he would be there, and I would get exiled to a couch or something, and it would throw me off my game. Lev Grossman coffee games writing Do you promise to hate my parents as much as I do?" "Oh, absolutely," Quentin said. "Maybe even more. Lev Grossman hate parent promise 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 perfect long thinking Nothing is wrong with you. You're not different. Everybody feels as bad as you do: this is just what writing a novel feels like. To write a novel is to come in contact with raw, primal feelings, hopes and longings and psychic wounds, and try to make a big public word-sculpture out of them, and that is a crazy hard thing to do. Lev Grossman psychics crazy writing The idea of some kind of objectively constant, universal literary value is seductive. It feels real. It feels like a stone cold fact that In Search of Lost Time, by Marcel Proust, is better than A Shore Thing, by Snooki. And it may be; Snooki definitely has more one-star reviews on Amazon. But if literary value is real, no one seems to be able to locate it or define it very well. We're increasingly adrift in a grey void of aesthetic relativism. Lev Grossman stars real ideas His whole personality was like an elaborate joke that he never stopped telling. Lev Grossman jokes whole personality
