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Don't take anyone's writing advice too seriously.

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
Seriously
Advice
Anyone
Take
Writing

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Book tours are excellent things, and one is lucky to get to go on one, but they have a way of leeching away one's will to live.
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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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The problem with growing up is that once you're grown up, the people who aren't grown up aren't fun anymore.
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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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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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The line between outside and inside is fuzzier in fantasy. Maybe that's something people are looking for.
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It's a terrible thing for a book, when you feel like you're supposed to like it.
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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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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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Josh speculated about the hypothetical contents of an imaginary porn magazine for intelligent trees that would be entitled Enthouse.
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People - me included - want to get excited about books. Good books are a good thing.
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My book group has one rule: no books for adults. We read young adult fiction only.
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I mean, when you're tired of book reviews, you're tired of life.
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As a writer I'm more drawn to villains who are just slightly mad.
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In 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 people away, make yourself feel better, make your life worse.
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There's a special gut-check moment the first time you write a scene in which somebody casts a spell.
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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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How 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.
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That’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 it was over. It didn’t matter. Death didn’t respect you. Death thought you were bullshit, and it wanted to make sure you knew 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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