Hating a book is not unlike hating a person; in fact it’s tempting to just go ahead and hate the author personally, by proxy, qua human being, except that I know that would be a mistake. Lev Grossman Read Quote
When it comes to true humility in the face of history, nothing beats complete silence. Lev Grossman Read Quote
It’s a great thing when you feel that you recognize yourself, deeply and movingly, in a work of literature. Lev Grossman Read Quote
It’s not really possible to open ‘The Casual Vacancy’ without a lot of expectations both high and low crashing around in your brain and distorting your vision. There’s no point pretending they’re not there. Lev Grossman Read Quote
When I got to college I simply decided that I could speak French, because I just could not spend any more time in French classes. I went ahead and took courses on French literature, some of them even taught in French. Lev Grossman Read Quote
More than fantasy or even science fiction, Ray Bradbury wrote horror, and like so many great horror writers he was himself utterly without fear, of anything. He wasn’t afraid of looking uncool – he wasn’t scared to openly love innocence, or to be optimistic, or to write sentimentally when he felt that way. Lev Grossman Read Quote
It’s a terrible thing for a book, when you feel like you’re supposed to like it. Lev Grossman Read Quote
Becoming an author changes your attitude too. Once you see where books come from, and how they’re made, they never seem quite as sacred again. Lev Grossman Read Quote
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. Lev Grossman Read Quote
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 on Saturday morning in the ’80s. Lev Grossman Read Quote
