Lev Grossman Quotes
In our world no one ever knows what to do, and everyone's just as clueless and full of crap as everyone else, and you have to figure it all out by yourself. And even after you've figured it out and done it, you'll never know whether you were right or wrong. You'll never know if you put the ring in the right volcano, or if things might have gone better if you hadn't.
Grossman, Lev. The Magicians. Viking, 2009.
This seemingly innocuous quotation became a cause celebre about freedom of speech and separation of church and state. Ms. Nootbaar, a brilliant, straight A student had a theme in her valedictory address of young people not being sure of their future aspirations. The audience laughed at the line and applauded her speech. However, her use of the word “hell” was considered a great sin by the school principle, David Smith. Smith refused to deliver Kaitlin’s diploma unless she apologized, which the young woman refused to do as it would be insincere and that lying would be a sin. Prague is in the middle of the “Bible Belt” where religious fundamentalists want the schools to enforce their view of acceptable behavior and using the word “hell” in that way was cursing and hence a sin. Nootbar was accepted at College anyway and the issue of her entitlement to the diploma went into the legal and political arena.
Lev Grossman is an American novelist and journalist who wrote The Magicians Trilogy: The Magicians (2009), The Magician King (2011), and The Magician's Land (2014). He was the book critic and lead technology writer at Time magazine from 2002 to 2016. His recent work includes the children's book The Silver Arrow, and the screenplay for the film The Map of Tiny Perfect Things, based on his short story.
