If my generation is remembered for anything, it will be as the last one that remembers the world before the Internet.

— Lev Grossman

If there's a single lesson that life teaches us, it's that wishing doesn't make it so.

— Lev Grossman

If there’s a single lesson that life teaches us, it’s that wishing doesn't make it so. Words and thoughts don’t change anything. Language and reality are kept strictly apart — reality is tough, unyielding stuff, and it doesn't care what you think or feel or say about it. Or it shouldn't. You deal with it, and you get on with your life.

— Lev Grossman

If there was any magic in this world that was not magic, it was wine.

— Lev Grossman

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

— Lev Grossman

I guess we’re supposed to have faith.”“I never really took you for the faith-having kind,” Quentin said.“I didn’t either. But it’s worked out so far. We’ve got five of the seven keys. You can’t argue with results.”“You can’t,” Quentin said, “but that’s actually not the same thing as having faith.”“Why do you always try to ruin everything?”“I’m not ruining it. I just want to understand it.”“If you had faith you wouldn’t have to understand.

— Lev Grossman

I have a little theory that I'd like to air here, if I may. What is it that you think makes you magicians?" More silence. Fog was well into rhetorical-question territory now anyway. He spoke more softly. "Is it because you are intelligent? Is it because you are brave and good? Is because you're special? Maybe. Who knows. But I'll tell you something: I think you're magicians because you're unhappy. A magician is strong because he feels pain. He feels the difference between what the world is and what he would make of it. Or what did you think that stuff in your chest was? A magician is strong because he hurts more than others. His wound is his strength. Most people carry that pain around inside them their whole lives, until they kill the pain by other means, or until it kills them. But you, my friends, you found another way: a way to use the pain. To burn it as fuel, for light and warmth. You have learned to break the world that has tried to break you.

— Lev Grossman

I just completed a long car trip on a Sunday in August with two small children, which believe me is enough to convince you that Samuel Beckett was right about everything.

— Lev Grossman

I killed the Google Alert I used to have on myself two years ago. I don’t need any more information about myself. Furthermore, I get more than enough of that just by being me.

— Lev Grossman

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.

— Lev Grossman