A Quote by Lev Grossman

I think every fantasy reader secretly believes they know how magic works. — © Lev Grossman
I think every fantasy reader secretly believes they know how magic works.
People think they want to know how magic works, but really they don't. How it works is never as amazing as what the trick was in the first place, so it's never going to make you feel good. Somebody just wanting to know how a trick works is never enough to make me want to tell them.
For me, a great fantasy is real people, a world I recognise, human struggle and magic. You've got to have magic to make a fantasy work. But I like my magic to be subtle. I don't want magic coming out of the hands of wizards. I want it to be pervading, sinister somehow.
Some people love magic for the right reasons: They love to experience wonder. They don't want to know how it works. In this day and age, we know how everything works. We can Google anything and the answer is never really far away. Magic is a break from that where you get to enjoy mystery. And then there's the people who watch the trick but don't want to enjoy it because they want to figure it out and they feel like I'm challenging their intelligence, which I'm not doing. Those people are hell-bent on not enjoying magic and probably not enjoying their lives either.
You think that it’s not magic that keeps you alive? Just ‘cause you understand the mechanics of how something works, doesn’t make it any less of a miracle. Which is just another word for magic. We’re all kept alive by magic, Sookie. My magic’s just a little different from yours, that’s all.
What you believe one day isn't what you believe the next day and I think every writer secretly believes that they may never be able to do write good song or script again, but they can.
I'm just writing what I know. I've never been much of a reader of fantasy, and I think you write what you, personally, enjoy reading.
In a closed urban fantasy, the magical world is secret and no one knows about it. In an open urban fantasy, everyone knows about it. So with a closed fantasy, you have to figure out how the world keeps itself secret, and with an open one, you have to figure out how knowledge of magic has altered the world we know.
It doesn't stop being magic just because you know how it works.
I secretly harbor the fantasy of becoming an action star at any moment. I know I'd be great at it.
One thing you learn doing magic tricks for a living is how close every performance of every magic trick is to disaster. There are no robust magic tricks. They're all hanging from a thread - sometimes literally.
I don't know how to make magic. For most songwriter's that has only happened once or twice, and I don't know how to re-create that. I know that there are some tricks and tools, but the magic is the amazing part.
I think one of things is that all fantasy it seems to me works the way your brain basically works. This is perhaps a startling concept, but I think it's true.
The magic - we can try to capture the magic - the music that comes out of the speakers. That sparkle of magic that we can get sometimes is just what we are looking for and if it works while we're in the studio the two of us, then we think that maybe we can share it with an audience. And it's been the case from the beginning.
So many people think that if you're writing fantasy, it means you can just make everything up as you go. Want to add a dragon? Add a dragon! Want some magic? Throw it in. But the thing is, regardless of whether you're dealing with realism or fantasy, every world has rules. Make sure to establish a natural order.
You have to do every detail on every bloody piece of the building. You have to know how the engineering works. You have to know how the fittings go together. You have to master the mechanical, electrical, acoustical - everything.
If you're serious about being an architect, you've got to learn how to take responsibility. It's not fluff. You have to do every detail on every bloody piece of the building. You have to know how the engineering works. You have to know how the fittings go together. You have to master the mechanical, electrical, acoustical - everything.
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