Lev Grossman Quotes

Where was the line between a spell and a miracle?

Quentin’s conversations with his parents were so circular and self-defeating, they sounded like experimental theater.

If there's a bright side to the galaxy," Peter said, more or less aimlessly, "we're on the planet that's farthest from it.

His crush went from exciting to depressing, as if he’d gone from the first blush of infatuation to the terminal nostalgia of a former lover without even the temporary relief of an actual relationship in between.

It was the sound of death, the ultimate irreversible.

She was dipping a toe in the pool of bad behavior in finding the temperature was just right. It was fun being a problem. Julia had been very very good for a very long time, and the funny thing about that was, if you’re too good too much of the time, people start to forget about you. You’re not a problem, so people can strike you off their list of things to worry about. Nobody makes a fuss over you. They make a fuss over the bad girls.

Well," she announced cheerfully, "he's dead!

It was ending too soon, the way everything did, everything except Ebola viruses and really bad people like psychopaths. Those things never ended. How was that fair? Fuck it, it was stupid. Theories about life were always bullshit.

It was always easier to screw up somebody else’s spell than it was to cast one yourself. That was one of the many small unfairnesses of magic.

Specifically she was into dragons.
Quentin suppose it was an extension of the general Australian preoccupation with fatally dangerous animals. Start with saltwater crocodiles and box jellyfish and it was just a hop, skip, and a jump up the food chain before you got to dragons.

Be careful what you learn from me," he said. "What is written with a sword cannot be erased.

Everywhere you looked there was so much richness, you could never exhaust it. Maybe it was all a game, that got crumpled up and thrown away at the end, but while you were here it was real.

A big silvery janitor. Penny, this can't be how the universe works."
"In the Order we call it 'inverse profundity.' We've observed it in any number of cases. The deeper you go into the cosmic mysteries, the less interesting everything gets.

This was bad behavior, and she knew it. She did it because she was angry and because she disliked herself. The more she disliked herself, the more she took it out on other people, and the more she took it out on other people the more she disliked herself.

Hate isn’t like love, it doesn’t end. It goes on forever. You can never get to the bottom of it. And it’s so pure, so unconditional!