Wicked Gregory Maguire Quotes & Sayings

Staring at a world too horrible to comprehend, believing
by dint of ignorance and innocence
that beneath this unbearable contract of guilt and blame there is always an older contract that may bind and release in a more salutary way. — Gregory Maguire

Love makes hunters of us all. — Gregory Maguire

This is why you shouldn't fall in love, it blinds you. Love is wicked distraction. — Gregory Maguire

You charming idiot. — Gregory Maguire

And of the Witch? In the life of a Witch, there is no "after", in the "ever after" of a Witch there is no "happily"; in the story of a Witch, there is no afterword. Of that part that is beyond the life story, beyond the story of the life, there is-alas, or perhaps thank mercy-no telling. She was dead, dead, and gone, and all that was left of her was the carapace of her reputation for malice. — Gregory Maguire

And there the wicked old witch stayed for a good long time ... And did she ever come out? ... Not yet. — Gregory Maguire

He set out once more, with a sense that his life would be rich in setting outs, and perhaps poorer in homecomings. — Gregory Maguire

What had survived - maybe all that had survived of Trism - was Liir's sense of him. A catalog of impressions that arose from time to time, unbidden and often upsetting. From the sandy smell of his sandy hair to the locked grip of his muscles as they had wrestled in sensuous aggression - unwelcome nostalgia. Trism lived in Liir's heart like a full suit of clothes in a wardrobe, dress habillards maybe, hollow and real at once. The involuntary memory of the best of Trism's glinting virtues sometimes kicked up unquietable spasms of longing. — Gregory Maguire

I know you don't want to hear this but someone has to say it! You are out of control! I mean they're just shoes ... let it go! — Gregory Maguire

Don't wish,"said Rain, "don't start. Wishing only... — Gregory Maguire

That's the real power of art, I think. Not to chide but to provoke challenge. Otherwise why bother? — Gregory Maguire

Why should I keep myself so safe?" he asked her, but he was almost asking himself. What is there in my life worth preserving? With a good wife back there in the mountains, serviceable as an old spoon, dry in the heart from having been scared of marriage since she was six? With three children so shy of their father, the Prince of the Arjikis, that they will hardly come near him? With a careworn clan moving here, moving there, going through th same disputes, herding the same herds, as thy have done for five hundred years? And me, with a shallow and undirected mind, no artfulness in word or habit, no especial kindness toward the world? What is there that makes my life worth preserving?
"I love you," said Elphaba.
"So that's that then, and that's it," he answered her and himself. "And I love you. So I promise to be careful. — Gregory Maguire

Of course. You get everything from books. — Gregory Maguire

How truly novel. The emotional life of furniture. I never. — Gregory Maguire

Good gracious, dear, all of life is a spell. You know that. — Gregory Maguire

Not an ugly color, Nanny thought. Just not a human color. — Gregory Maguire

There were a great many jokes about the disaster (house falling on and killing Wicked Witch of the East), naturally. "You can't hide from desinty, that house had her name on it" "That Nessarose, she was giving such a good speech about religious lessons, she really brought down the house!" "Everybody needs to grow up and leave home sometimes, but sometimes HOME DOESN'T LIKE IT." "What's the different between a shooting star and a falling house?" "One which is propitious grants delicious wishes, the other which is vicious squishes witches." "What's big, thick, makes the earth move, and wants to have its way with you?" "I don't know, but can you introduce me? — Gregory Maguire

Birds know themselves not to be at the center of anything, but at the margins of everything. The end of the map. We only live where someone's horizon sweeps someone else's. We are only noticed on the edge of things; but on the edge of things, we notice much. — Gregory Maguire

The overdressed traveler betrays more interest in being seen than in seeing, while the true traveler knows that the novel world about her serves as the most appropriate accessory. — Gregory Maguire

To look into the mirror is to see the future, in blood and rubies. — Gregory Maguire

Isn't that funny, that deity is passe but the attributes and implications of deity linger
— Gregory Maguire

Okay let's get this over with, no I'm not seasick, yes I've always been green, No I didn't eat grass as a child. — Gregory Maguire

[after discussion about what evil is, a question asked to Elphaba on why she killed Madame Morrible]
"Why did you do it?" asked the hostess with spirit.
The Witch shrugged. "For fun? Maybe evil is an art form. — Gregory Maguire

Surely there is the handful of nursery marchen that start, 'Once in the middle of a forest lived an old witch' or 'The devil was out walking one day and met a child,' " Said Oatsie, who was showing that she had some education as well as grit. "To the grim poor there need be no pour quoi tale about where evil arises; it always is. One never learns how the witch became wicked, or whether that was the right choice for her - is it ever the right choice? Does the devil ever struggle to be good again, or if so is he not the devil? It is at the very least a question of definitions. — Gregory Maguire

And there the wicked witch stayed for a long long time.'
Did she ever come out?'
Not yet. — Gregory Maguire

And in the cave there lived a wicked old witch. Did she ever some out? Not yet. — Gregory Maguire

Come what may and hell to pay. — Gregory Maguire

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 — Gregory Maguire

When I was in the running for the role of Elphaba, I knew it was important to research and study as much background information as I could, so I got my head stuck into 'Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West' by Gregory Maguire, and I believe I lost many days, weeks, and months reading it - I was captivated! — Rachel Tucker

Perhaps, thought Nanny, little green Elphaba chose her own sex, and her own color, and to hell with her parents. — Gregory Maguire

I had written children's books for 14 years before I published 'Wicked.' And none of them were poorly reviewed, and none of them sold enough for me to be able to buy a bed. — Gregory Maguire

One never knows how the witch became wicked, or whether that was the right choice for her - is it ever the right choice? Does the devil ever struggle to be good again, or if so is he not a devil? It is the very least question of definitions. — Gregory Maguire

It is very difficult to make one's way in this world without being wicked at one time or another, when the world's way is so wicked to begin with. — Gregory Maguire

Your transparency is just another one of your disguises, isn't it? — Gregory Maguire

Just my luck, if I believed in luck. I only believe in the opposite of luck, whatever that is. — Gregory Maguire

Not old enough to feel like an adult , really, but old enough to look like one, and to know the distinction between being carefree and careless. — Gregory Maguire

We are loping sequences of chemical conversions, acting ourselves converted. We are twists of genes acting ourselves twisted; we are wicks of burning neuroses acting ourselves wicked. And nothing to be done about it. And nothing to be done about it. — Gregory Maguire

We only have babies when we're young enough not to know how grim life turns out. — Gregory Maguire

When I began 'Wicked', I really thought of it entirely as a one-off, as the English say. There was no intention that there should ever be a follow up, because the subtitle was 'The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West'. She was dead and gone, as the book says, at the end. — Gregory Maguire

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 yet ... She was, after all, on her way to Shiz because she was smart.
But there was more than one way to be smart. — Gregory Maguire

For one short wet month early in the next year the drought lifted. Spring tipped in like green well water frothing at the hedges bubbling at the roadside splashing from the cottage roof in garlands of ivy and stringflower — Gregory Maguire

One never learns how the witch became wicked, or whether that was the right choice for her~is it ever the right choice? Does the devil ever struggle to be good again, or if so is he not a devil? — Gregory Maguire

I wouldn't mind leaving myself behind if I could, but I don't know the way out. — Gregory Maguire

I like the sound of words, but I don't ever really expect my slow, slanted impression of the world to change by what I read. — Gregory Maguire

In her time Nor Tigelaar had faced insurrectionists and collaborationists and war profiteers. She'd endured abduction and prison and self-mutilation. She'd sold herself in sex not for cash but for military information that might come in handy to the resistance, and in so doing she'd come across a rum variety of human types. — Gregory Maguire

You always said I could see the present," said Candle, when she could speak. "But I can see nothing about her - my own daughter." Liir smoothed his hand over her silky flank. "Maybe that's not so surprising. Maybe all parents are blindest to their own offspring. — Gregory Maguire