Quotes from Lev Grossman

Glory has its price," Penny said. "Did you not know that, before you sought it?

The bus was thick with resignation, like a prison bus. Some kids slept. Others—the boys mostly—seemed to actually be stimulated by the atmosphere of despair; they ran feral, like being on a school bus meant they were in international waters.

And if you tell him you saw me smoking, I will banish you to the lowest circle of hell. Which I've never been there, but if even half of what I hear is true it's almost as bad as Brooklyn." Eliot

Quentin knew he wasn't happy. Why not? He had painstakingly assembled all the ingredients of happiness. He had performed all the necessary rituals, spoken the words, lit the candles, made the sacrifices. But happiness, like a disobedient spirit, refused to come. He couldn't think what else to do.

Worst away team ever," Josh said, wading up onto land. "Not a single redshirt.

Quentin did not consider himself a great interpreter of signs and wonders, but the lesson of the golden key seemed pretty clear to him. It was this: you've already won the game, so quit playing. Remain where you are, in your castle, and you will be safe. No further action on your part is required.

It was late May,

You just had to get some idea of what matters and what doesn't, and how much, and try not to be scared of the stuff that doesn't.

by which I mean he ran his ship into it." Quentin wondered if there was a joke to be made about "founder" and "founder." If there was it had probably already made the rounds of the Outer Island.

it was so easy to ignore people when you understood how little power they really had over you—

The room filled with a collective rustling of paper, like a flock of birds taking off. Heads bowed in unison. Quentin recognized this motion. It was the motion of a bunch of high-powered type-A test killers getting down to their bloody work. That was all right. He was one of them.

There is really no end to life's little humiliations,

If you will, for just one second, look at your life and see how perfect it is. Stop looking for the next secret door that is going to lead you to your real life. Stop waiting. This is it: there's nothing else. It's here, and you'd better decide to enjoy it or you're going to be miserable wherever you go, for the rest of your life, forever.

autistically focused right

Who knows what's in here? Could come in useful.

She was feeling something—a new feeling. Not even a feeling exactly, more like she wasn't feeling a lot of things that she was used to feeling. She wasn't tired, or bored, or frustrated, or wishing she was somewhere else doing something else. All that was cleared away. She still had basically no idea what was going on, but she knew she was free to be herself, right here, right now, in the moment. She couldn't wait to find out what she was going to feel next.

Schwarzschild radius,

He didn't need a magic rabbit to tell him his future, he knew his future because it was already here. This was the happily ever after part. Close the book, put it down, walk away.

We have our whole lives ahead of us and all I want to do is take a nap.

Quentin felt cold all the time like he was trapped in his own private individual winter

The sun set. The car smelled of its owner's cigarette smoke. Everything was toxic and chemical and unnatural: the plastic walnut trim, the electric lights, the burning gasoline that was shoving them forward. This whole world was a processed petroleum product.

You deal with it, and you get on with your life. "Little children don't know that. Magical thinking: that's what Freud called it. Once we learn otherwise we cease to be children. The separation of word and thing is the essential fact on which our adult lives are founded.

He was either going to hit somebody or start a blog.

Janet was in charge of relations with foreign powers—Quentin called her Fillory Clinton.