Lev Grossman Quotes
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.
Quotes to Explore
-
America tends to worship the modest talent because it doesn't put us in an uncomfortable position vis-a-vis the artist.
-
I converse with my dog through ESP.
-
I do always have a wall up. But I feel by doing it, I keep myself safe.
-
Justice is revenge.
-
After all, one knows one's weak points so well, that it's rather bewildering to have the critics overlook them and invent others.
-
It angers me when sustainability gets used as a buzz word. For 90 percent of the world, sustainability is a matter of survival.
-
Now I am not against widgets, those small third-party applications that people can put on their Web pages on social networks like Facebook and MySpace, in general.
-
The main purpose of life is to live rightly, think rightly, act rightly. The soul must languish when we give all our thought to the body.
-
I'm not Mr. Mom, but there's just certain things I won't say anymore.
-
I feel like a member of any group comprised of outsiders.
-
The first time I worked with colors was by making these mosaics of Pantone swatches. They end up being very large pictures, and I photographed with a very large camera - an 8x10 camera. So you can see the surface of every single swatch - like in this picture of Chuck Close. And you have to walk very far to be able to see it.
-
Italian was my first foreign language. I speak it better than English.
-
I enjoy stand-up because it has the biggest reward: instant gratification. You can hear the people laughing.
-
We grew up listening to music like that: we grew up on the snap music, grew up off the trap music, grew up on all the South sound.
-
You can't get a cup of tea big enough or a book long enough to suit me.
-
I remember when I first met Katherine Bigelow for 'Zero Dark Thirty' – actually, we met for another movie, and that never got made, and then she called me and invited me to 'Zero Dark Thirty'.
-
These days we're all hyper-aware of the canonical way in which stories are supposed to play out - people are taught all about three-act scripting and where to put the reversal and all of that - and I think we can do more interesting narratives.
-
The arrogance of age must submit to be taught by youth.
-
Lies suck; they tear you apart from the inside out.
-
The creation of George Smiley, the retired spy recalled to hunt for just such a high-ranking mole in 'Tinker, Tailor,' was extremely personal. I borrowed elements of people I admired and invested them in this mythical character. I'm such a fluent, specious person now, but I was an extremely awkward fellow in those days.
-
I'm actually quite a nice person. It's to do with the way I look, an uncompromising sort of face, brusque delivery and voice, and I think the combination of all that. When I'm doing pantomime, children will scream the place down before I open my mouth. There's obviously something that really gets them.
-
Values are the shields that you carry throughout life and it protects you from whatever life throws at you.
-
I just tend to think about everyday things for my onstage act. Actually you know what I like to talk about just the absolute most - the more mundane the subject matter, the more interesting it is to me.
-
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.
