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Oddly, the meanings of books are defined for me much more by their beginnings and middles than they are by their endings.

Lev Grossman

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Lev Grossman
Age: 55
Born: 1969
Born: June 26
Journalist
Literary Critic
Novelist
Science Fiction Writer
Writer
Lexington
Massachusetts
Beginnings
Defined
Books
Book
Much
Middles
Oddly
Endings
Meanings

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I have spent many, many hours reading J.K. Rowling's work. I am a known 'Harry Potter' fan.
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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 is going to lead you to your real life. Stop waiting. This is it: there's nothing else. It's here, and you'd better decide to enjoy it or you're going to be miserable wherever you go, for the rest of your life, forever.
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It's time to live with what we have and mourn what we lost.
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The real world is horrible.
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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.
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It was strange to be naked in front of anybody. It was like that cold water out there in the bay: scary, you didn’t think you could stand it, but then you plunged in and pretty soon you got used to it. There was enough hiding in life. Sometimes you just wanted to show somebody your tits.
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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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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.
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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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Don't take anyone's writing advice too seriously.
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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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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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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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The line between outside and inside is fuzzier in fantasy. Maybe that's something people are looking for.
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Careful what you hunt, lest you catch it.
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I mean, when you're tired of book reviews, you're tired of life.
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I 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 Yale, and I guess it is odd, but that's just what people did where I grew up.
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As a writer I'm more drawn to villains who are just slightly mad.
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You didn’t get the quest you wanted, you got the one you could do.
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