37 quotes
Life was briskly and efficiently stripping Quentin of his last delusions about himself, one by one, shucking them off in firm hard jerks like wet clothes, leaving him naked and shivering.
The Magician's Land (2014)
When I look at England now I see a dead place, Rupert. A wasteland. I won’t live in a wasteland. I’d rather die in paradise.
The Magician's Land (2014)
One of the secrets Martin must have learned down below the Northern Marsh was how not to care about some things, and there was power in that, the power to live as though his actions had no consequences. It fell to us to witness the consequences, and they were ugly.
The Magician's Land (2014)
His heart went out to that weird, solitary man in his uncomfortable hut. He’d never met him. They wouldn’t have had much to say to each other if they had. But whoever that hermit was, he obviously despised his fellow man, and that meant he was OK in Eliot’s book.
The Magician's Land (2014)
Maybe when you give up your dreams, you find out that there’s more to life than dreaming. He was going to live in the real world from now on, and he was going to learn to appreciate its rough, mundane solidity.
The Magician's Land (2014)
Even on the first day we invaded Plover’s house we sensed the conundrum that Americans are faced with in England: they’re too frightened of English people to behave rudely to them, and too ignorant to know how to behave politely.
The Magician's Land (2014)
Who the fuck is playing that shit? Janet thought. How do they even know what notes to play? Probably it was Written somewhere, probably there’s always been a big alpenhorn somewhere under glass, with a sign that says In case of Ragnarok break glass and play an E flat.
The Magician's Land (2014)
Now all I can see is how simple he made everything sound. Reading the Fillory books you would think that all one has to do is behave honorably and bravely and all will be well. What a lesson to teach young children. What a way to prepare them for the rest of their lives.
The Magician's Land (2014)
She was too tired to feel anything more, she wanted a book to do to her what books did: take away the world, slide it aside for a little bit, and let her please, please just be somewhere and somebody else.
The Magician's Land (2014)
When he graduated he’d thought life was going to be like a novel, starring him on his own personal hero’s journey, and that the world would provide him with an endless series of evils to triumph over and life lessons to learn. It took him a while to figure out that wasn’t how it worked.
The Magician's Land (2014)
It was ending too soon, the way everything did, everything except Ebola viruses and really bad people like psychopaths. Those things never ended. How was that fair? Fuck it, it was stupid. Theories about life were always bullshit.
The Magician's Land (2014)
But that was the thing about the old days: they were old. This was his life now. He was content, and if not happy then happier than he ever thought he’d be again. He had work to do….The past was what it was, his home was here, and anything else was a fantasy.
The Magician's Land (2014)
As he got deeper into it he began to run into a lot of mathematics, which he had to work out with a pencil and paper—you couldn’t do magical equations with computers, they just spat out inconsistent answers before hanging completely. Magical math had to be thought through with a brain.
The Magician's Land (2014)
Quentin thought about how wrong things had gone. Things so often went wrong. Was it him? Was he making the same mistake over and over again? Or different mistakes? He like to think he was at least making different mistakes.
The Magician's Land (2014)
“Wishes are for children,” Jane Chatwin said. “I grew up.”
The Magician's Land (2014)
There was a lot to do. Death was an existential catastrophe, a rip in the soft upholstery with which humanity padded over a hard uncaring universe, but it turned out there were an amazing number of people whose job it was to deal with it for you, and all they asked in return were huge quantities of time and money.
The Magician's Land (2014)
He’d always half expected that the watch would turn out to have some sort of amazing magical power—turning back time, maybe, or slowing it, or freezing it, or something. It certainly looked magical enough. But if it had any powers at all he’d never found them. Funny how some things you’re sure will pay off never do.
The Magician's Land (2014)