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Portrait of Lev Grossman

Lev Grossman

(1969) Journalist United States

379 quotes in 1122 categories

We’re wired to expect a brighter, more meaningful world, but Grossman reminds us that reality often falls short. He notes that bravery feels easy when we’d rather die than give up, and that fatigue disappears when we truly want to suffer. He also enjoys villains who are just a little mad, finding them more interesting than ordinary foes.

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Lev Grossman is a journalist from the United States, best known for The Magicians: A Novel.

Quick Facts About Lev Grossman

Born: June 26, 1969
Nationality: United States
Profession: Journalist
Notable works: The Magicians: A Novel

About Lev Grossman

He later wrote the children’s books The Silver Arrow and its sequel The Golden Swift, as well as The Bright Sword, a new take on the King Arthur legend. He also turned one of his short stories into the screenplay for the movie The Map of Tiny Perfect Things.

Awards & Honors

Astounding Award for Best New Writer

Quotes by Lev Grossman

“The multiverse was his TGI Friday’s.”

Friday

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“What is written with a sword cannot be erased.”

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“Welcome to Facelessbook: an antisocial network.”

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“The hero pays the price.”

Hero

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Careful what you hunt, lest you catch it.

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“We need to get some fauns up in this piece.”

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We have lived too long. The great days are past.

Great day

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“And I need this. That’s all I can tell you.”

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“But being in the middle of it, it wasn’t that obvious.”

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“Wishes are for children,” Jane Chatwin said. “I grew up.”

Children

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I got my heart's desire, and there my troubles began.

Desire

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“That’s it?” “That’s it. And then you jump in. It’s all just tradition. I mean,”

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“The higher you get the more you realize how much bigger than you everything is.”

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“It was Italy after all. People probably hit each other all the time.”

Italy

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“Funny how life had its little ways of surprising you. Little quirks of fate.”

Destiny

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“And why not do the easiest possible thing? Because isn’t that always the best thing?”

Best thing

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Growing up in the '70s and '80s, science fiction and especially fantasy had such a stigma attached to them. I felt so…

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“In the Order we call it ‘inverse profundity.’ We’ve observed it in any number of cases. The deeper you go into the…

Profundity

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“Maybe this was the only way it could have gone. You didn’t get the quest you wanted, you got the one you…

Adventure

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It's a great thing when you feel that you recognize yourself, deeply and movingly, in a work of literature.

Books

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“It makes perfect political sense. We have reached the point where ignorance and neglect are the best we can hope for in…

Ignorance

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A novel with a bad middle is a bad book. A bad ending is something I've just gotten in the habit of…

Book

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“Nothing made you feel more like a fucking sorcerer than aviating under your own power. Yippee ki-yay, motherfuckers.”

Sorcerer

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“They were like two recovering alcoholics, hopped up on caffeine and Twelve Step gospel, telling each other how glad they were to…

Christianity

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Which is the healthier kind of literary diversity: an un-gate-kept self-published book world, run substantially through Amazon? Or our current book world,…

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“If he couldn’t go back, he would just have to do things differently going forward. He felt how infinitely safer and more…

Courage

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“God, I hope we don’t have to use that,” was all he said out loud. “Oh, come on, Quentina. We’re not looking…

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One already feels like an anachronism, writing novels in the age of what-ever-this-is-the-age-of, but touring to promote them feels doubly anachronistic. The…

Age

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“He knew for a fact that one of the girls had managed to take over the plenary session of the national model…

Endangered species

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For just one second, look at your life and see how perfect it is. Stop looking for the next secret door that…

Character

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His crush went from exciting to depressing, as if he'd gone from the first blush of infatuation to the terminal nostalgia of…

Crush

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You don't want to move toward some utopian literary situation where everybody's free of all conventions. That's ridiculous! Conventions are what you…

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“If you will, for just one second, look at your life and see how perfect it is. Stop looking for the next…

Life

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“She met a lot of people, and some people who weren’t people. The more rural houses occasionally played host to minor demons…

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“You might jump in at this point and say: Hey. Guy. (It's Mark.) Okay, Mark. If the same day is repeating over…

Every morning

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“And on and on, and it all sounded completely, horribly plausible. Any one of a thousand options promised - basically guaranteed -…

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“But there was a more seductive, more dangerous truth to Fillory that Quentin couldn’t let go of. It was almost like the…

Truth

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“...In books there's always somebody standing by ready to say hey, the world's in danger, evil's on the rise, but if you're…

Advice

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“Forget everything you ordinarily associate with religious study. Strip away all the reverence and the awe and the art and the philosophy…

Education

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“He'd been right about the world, but he was wrong about himself. The word was a desert, but he was a magician,…

Magician

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Lev Grossman by topic

Books (59) Life (41) Time (33) Book (33) Writer (32) Magic (22) Writing (21) World (16) Magician (15) People (14) Mind (14) Fantasy (13) Real life (11) Novel (11) Happiness (11) Thinking (10) Heart (10)