{"author":"Lev Grossman","author_id":"Lev+Grossman","total_quotes":71,"quotes":[{"text":"She was the most beautiful, terrible thing he'd ever seen, like an acetylene flame, an incandescent filament, a fallen star right in front of him.","author":"Lev Grossman","tags":["alice","beauty","flame","light","love","she","star","terror"],"id":7915,"author_id":"Lev+Grossman"},{"text":"I’ve learned that the creative life may or may not be the apex of human civilization, but either way it’s not what I thought it was. It doesn’t make you special and sparkly. You don’t have to walk alone. You can work in an office — I’ve worked in offices for the past 15 years and written five novels while doing it. The creative life is forgiving: You can betray it all you want, again and again, and no matter how many times you do, it will always take you back.","author":"Lev Grossman","tags":["creative-process","creativity","writing","writing-advice","writing-craft"],"id":8390,"author_id":"Lev+Grossman"},{"text":"He wanted to stick his finger in it and see what happened. Some story, some quest, started here, and he wanted to go on it. It felt fresh and clean and unsafe, nothing like the heavy warm lard of palace life. The protective plastic wrap had been peeled off.","author":"Lev Grossman","tags":["adventure"],"id":11134,"author_id":"Lev+Grossman"},{"text":"...Being around him wasn’t good for Quentin. He could feel himself regressing in the direction of an adolescent tantrum—it was like trying to talk to his parents. He lost all perspective on who he was and how far he’d come.","author":"Lev Grossman","tags":["adulthood","growing-up","parent-child-relationships"],"id":16862,"author_id":"Lev+Grossman"},{"text":"You’re saying the gods don’t have free will.” “The power to make mistakes,” Penny said. “Only we have that. Mortals.","author":"Lev Grossman","tags":["choices","free-will"],"id":28022,"author_id":"Lev+Grossman"},{"text":"The gods were great, but what good was greatness if you didn't love?","author":"Lev Grossman","tags":["gods","love"],"id":62395,"author_id":"Lev+Grossman"},{"text":"It wasn't nothing, but it wasn't everything either.","author":"Lev Grossman","tags":["inspirational","life","motivational"],"id":62585,"author_id":"Lev+Grossman"},{"text":"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.","author":"Lev Grossman","tags":["august","car-trips","kids","road-trips","samuel-beckett"],"id":72720,"author_id":"Lev+Grossman"},{"text":"We're wired to expect the world to be brighter and more meaningful and more obviously interesting than it actually is. And when we realize that it isn't, we start looking around for the real world.","author":"Lev Grossman","tags":["expectations","meaning","reality","world"],"id":81653,"author_id":"Lev+Grossman"},{"text":"By now he had learned enough to know that when he was getting annoyed at somebody else, it was usually because there was something that he himself should be doing, and he wasn't doing it.","author":"Lev Grossman","tags":["actions","annoyance","irritation","responsibility","self-awareness"],"id":86604,"author_id":"Lev+Grossman"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":71,"pages":8,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}