Quotes from Gregory Maguire

Galinda shivered, and was sure Madame Morrible felt it, knew it, but the Head never registered a sign of it. But then, my use of sorority - how ironic. Too witty. Give a long enough time, of course, a wide enough frame, there is nothing said or done, ever, that isn't ironic in the end.

Galinda didn't see the verdant world through the glass of the carriage; she saw her own reflection instead. She had the nearsightedness of youth. She reasoned that because she was beautiful she was significant, though what she signified, and to whom, was not clear to her yet.

Noon bells sang out with their usual ignorance of mood, marking out moments of grief and worry, elation and confusion. The bells said that at its core, human life was fundamentally a sort of organic clockwork, while the winds and skylarks that swept against the sound of metronomic iron timekeeping argued for variety, subtlety, epiphany.

Cat] found a complete set of the works of Edgar Allan Poe, with little tabs of paper sticking out. The were scrawled over with the witch's comments to herself, Fun! Try this, but with exploding feathers! and Gotta love him -- deeply sick.

Well, I might be all or none of the things you say, said Boq staunchly, but you will learn that I am persistent. I will not let you say no to our friendship, Galinda. It means too much to me. Behold the male beast roaring in the jungle for his mate, said Elphaba. See how the female beast giggles behind a shrub while she organizes her face to say, Pardon dear, did you say something?

And, once the innocence of childhood is lost, no adolescent has ever regained it.

The last light with any real warmth had been at home, long ago, in a place and a time that no longer existed, with people whose names he didn't say even inside his own mind.

once you outgrow that fetching habit of faith you will display a ferocious authority.

I don't require all your attention but I do need some of it. (Wicked)

She had that look a child has only a few times in its life, when the child has bettered her betters. The expression isn't smug, though adults often take it for smugness. It's something else. Maybe relief at having confirmed through personal experience the long-held suspicion of our species, that the enchanted world of childhood is merely a mask for something else, a more subtle and paradoxical magic. - p. 157

Será que o diabo já se esforçou para ser bom de novo ou, se fizer isso, não é um demônio?

When a scarecrow blows apart in a gale wind, the farmer just props up another one. It's the job to be done that's important, not who does it.

And when the good Doctor is finished ferreting out the difference between Animals and people, I will propose he apply the same arguments to the differences between the sexes, said Elphaba.

Quando os tempos são cruciais, quando o ar está cheio de crise, aqueles que são mais parecidos consigo mesmos são as vítimas.

Wisdom is not the understanding of mystery, she said to herself, not for the first time. Wisdom is accepting that mystery is beyond understanding. That's what makes it mystery

My father taught me a lot, Elphaba said slowly. He was very well educated indeed. He taught me to read and write and think, and more. But not enough. I just think, like our teachers here, that if ministers are effective, they're good at asking questions to get you to think. I don't think they're supposed to have the answers. Not necessarily.

Glinda was changed. She knew it herself. She had come to Shiz a vain, silly thing, and she now found herself in a coven of vipers. Maybe it was her own fault.

Whimsy is fate, too: just less knowable.

Madame Morrible, for all her upper-class diction and fabulous wardrobe, seemed just a tad—oh—dangerous. As if her big public smile were composed of the light glancing off knives and lances, as if her deep voice masked the rumbling of distant explosions. Galinda always felt as if she couldn't see the whole picture.

The moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves as well. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen accidents, meetings and material assistance that no one could have dreamed would come their way. Whatever you can do or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now. —Goethe, by attribution

Secrets are revealed as you are ready to understand them.

The premise is prejudicial and proves that what's wanted here isn't a trial but a conviction.

There was something vulgar about traveling in jewels. As she realized this truth, she codified it into a saying. At the earliest perfect opportunity she would bring it out as proof of her having opinions—and of having traveled. "The overdressed traveler betrays more interest in being seen than in seeing," she murmured, trying it out, "while the true traveler knows that the novel world about her serves as the most appropriate accessory." Good, very good.

How very like a dream this all is.