Quotes from Gregory Maguire

She wondered, faintly, if it was immoral to raise children in the habit of hope. Was it not, in the end, all the harder for them to adjust to the reality of how the world worked?

When the dawn light is coursing through the slats in the shutters at last, making thin stripes on the floor, she, tossing, decides that for every human soul there must surely be a possible childhood worth living, but once it slips by, there isn't any reclaiming it or revising it.

Sorrow has a name, and its name is loneliness. Sorrow has a shape, and its shape is absence. Sorrow is a sickness like any other.

I have the distinct feeling I'm not in Oz anymore,' said Brrr.

Glinda waved dismissively. Then she tucked her hand against her mouth and bit her knuckles. It was hard to tell if her pretty ways were studied or innate. Oh, oh, she managed, I don't know that I'll see you again- and you remind me so of her.

I take all the credit in the world for my own foolishness.

Every choice brings wisdom in its wake. If you got to have the wisdom first, it wouldn't be a choice--just policy

the reasons just reassemble themselves in different patterns every time I think about it.

YOU HAVE YOUR OWN LIFE TO LIVE, IRIS, AND AT ITS END, THE ONLY OPINION THAT AMOUNTS TO ANYTHING IS THAT WHICH GOD BESTOWS.

Under every roof, a story, just as behind every brow, a history

Forgive us our trespasses," says Margarethe, "and get out of our way.

We live in our tales of ourselves, she thought, and ignore as best we can the contradictions, and the lapses, and the abrasions of plot against our mortal souls...

You might forget a story, but you can never unhear a story.

What is a spell after all but a way of coaxing syllables together so persuasively that some new word is spelled...some imprecision clarified, some name Named...and some change managed.

Men were beasts. Everyone knew that.

I'm not involved in shame. Morals are learned in childhood, and I didn't have any such holiday called childhood.

We live in our tales of ourselves. . . and ignore as best we can the contradictions, and the lapses, and the abrasions of plot against our mortal souls. . .

The wall read: ELPHIE LIVES OZMA LIVES THE WIZARD LIVES and then EVERYONE LIVES BUT US.

She put her face against Glinda's and kissed her. 'Hold out, if you can,' she murmured, and kissed her again. 'Hold out, my sweet.' [...] It was astounding how quickly she became camouflaged in the ragamuffin variety of street life on the Emerald City. Or maybe it was foolish tears blurring Glinda's vision. Elphaba hadn't cried, of course. Her head had turned quickly as she stepped down, not to hide her tears but to soften the fact of their absence. But the sting, to Glinda, was real.

Oh my darling, oh my darling, oh my darling porcupine, she crooned. Little critters fried like fritters come out crunchy and divine.

Now we'd help her if we could. We can't. So we're helping you. That's all that most of us who are not Tsars or witches can manage to do.

The world pauses for royalty and deformity alike, and sometimes one can't tell the difference.

At its most elemental, a spell is no more than a recipe for change.

And what new life can emerge from a book. Any book, maybe.