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.
Lev GrossmanThe line between outside and inside is fuzzier in fantasy. Maybe that's something people are looking for.
Lev GrossmanThatโs what death did, it treated you like a child, like everything you had ever thought and done and cared about was just a childโs game, to be crumpled up and thrown away when it was over. It didnโt matter. Death didnโt respect you. Death thought you were bullshit, and it wanted to make sure you knew it.
Lev GrossmanOne already feels like an anachronism, writing novels in the age of what-ever-this-is-the-age-of, but touring to promote them feels doubly anachronistic. The marketplace is showing an increasing intolerance for the time-honored practice of printing information on paper and shipping it around the country.
Lev Grossman