"People who claim they're evil are usually no worse than the rest of us. It's people who claim that they're good, or any way better than the rest of us, that you have to be wary of. "
— Gregory Maguire (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West)

"Remember this: Nothing is written in the stars. Not these stars, nor any others. No one controls your destiny."
— Gregory Maguire (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West)

"Happy endings are still endings."
— Gregory Maguire (Son of a Witch: A Novel)

"I've heard it said that people come into our lives for a reason
Bringing something we must learn
And we are led to those who help us most to grow
If we let them and we help them in return."
— Gregory Maguire (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West)

"Where I'm from, we believe in all sorts of things that aren't true... we call it history."
— Gregory Maguire (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West)

"As long as people are going to call you lunatic anyway, why not get the benefit of it? It liberates you from convention."
— 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 (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West)

"In the lives of children, pumpkins turn into coaches, mice and rats turn into men. When we grow up, we realize it is far more common for men to turn into rats."
— Gregory Maguire (Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister)

"The body apologizes to the soul for its errors, and the soul asks forgiveness for squatting in the body without invitation."
— Gregory Maguire (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West)

"She dropped her shyness like a nightgown, and in the liquid glare of sunlight on old boards she held up her hands-as if, in the terror of the upcoming skirmish, she had at last understood that she was beautiful. In her own way."
— Gregory Maguire (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West)

"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 (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West)

"Those who don't try never look foolish."
— Gregory Maguire (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West)

"The eye is always caught by light, but shadows have more to say."
— Gregory Maguire (Mirror Mirror)

"'Cause getting your dreams
It's strange, but it seems
A little -- well -- complicated
There's a kind of a sort of : cost
There's a couple of things get : lost
There are bridges you cross
You didn't know you crossed
Until you've crossed."
— Gregory Maguire (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West)

"Memory is a part of the present. It builds us up inside; it knits our bones to our muscles and keeps our hearts pumping. It is memory that reminds our bodies to work, and memory that reminds our spirits to work to: it keeps us who we are.~Candle"
— Gregory Maguire (Son of a Witch: A Novel)

"Maybe the definition of home is the place where you are never forgiven. So you may always belong there, bound by guilt. And maybe the cost of belonging is worth it."
— Gregory Maguire

"And girls need cold anger. They need the cold simmer, the ceaseless grudge, the talent to avoid forgiveness, the side stepping of compromise. They need to know when they say something that they will never back down,ever, ever. "
— Gregory Maguire (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West)

"Some things I cannot change, but 'til I try I'll never know."
— Gregory Maguire (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West)

"Books fall open, you fall in. When you climb out again, you're a bit larger than you used to be"
— Gregory Maguire

"Not everyone is born a witch or a saint. Not everyone is born talented, or crooked, or blessed; some are born definite in no particular at all. We are a fountain of shimmering contradictions, most of us. Beautiful in the concept, if we're lucky, but frequently tedious or regrettable as we flesh ourselves out."
— Gregory Maguire (Son of a Witch: A Novel)

"That was such a wonderful time, even in its strangeness and sadness-and life isn't the same now. It's wonderful, but it isn't the same."
— Gregory Maguire (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West)

"There were more ways to live than the ones given by one's superiors"
— Gregory Maguire (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West)

"We can't all come and go by Bubble!"
— Gregory Maguire (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West)

"So he stalked her again. Love makes hunters of us all."
— Gregory Maguire (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West)

"GLINDA: Well,I'm a public figure now! People expect me to--

ELPHABA: Lie?

GLINDA: (fiercely) Be encouraging! And what exactly have you been doing? Besides riding on around on that filthy thing!

ELPHABA: Well, we can't all come and go by bubble. Whose invention was that, the Wizard's? Of course, even if it wasn't, I'm sure he'd still take credit for it.

GLINDA: Yes, well, a lot of us are taking things that don't belong to us, aren't we?

Uh oh! The two stare daggers at each other, then...

ELPHABA: Now, wait just a clock-tick. I know it's difficult for that blissful blonde brain of yours to comprehend that someone like him could actually choose someone like me!But it's happened. It's real. And you can wave that ridiculous wand all you want, you can't change it! He never belonged to you -- he doesn't love you, he never did! He loves me!"
— Gregory Maguire (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West)

"They moved together, blue diamonds on a green field."
— Gregory Maguire (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West)

"He lingered at the door, and said, 'The Lion wants courage, the Tin Man a heart, and the Scarecrow brains. Dorothy wants to go home. What do you want?'...
She couldn't say forgiveness, not to Liir. She started to say 'a soldier,' to make fun of his mooning affections over the guys in uniform. But realizing even as she said it that he would be hurt, she caught herself halfway, and in the end what came out of her mouth surprised them both.
She said, 'A soul-'
He blinked at her."
— Gregory Maguire (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West)

""She's sent the crows out to blind the guests coming for dinner!"

"What?"

"She's BLINDING THE GUESTS COMING FOR DINNER!"

"Well, that's one way to avoid having to dust, I suppose.""
— Gregory Maguire

"In summer moonlight, she was dangerously, inebriatingly magnified. "
— Gregory Maguire (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West)

"It's the endlessly thinking about yourself that causes such heart shame."
— Gregory Maguire (Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister)

"It's the only condition I know. Bitter Love, Loneliness, contempt for corruption, blind hope. It's where I live. A permanent state of bereavement. This is nothing new."
— Gregory Maguire (Son of a Witch: A Novel)

"The moon rose, an opalescent goddess tipping light from her harsh maternal scimitar."
— Gregory Maguire (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West)

"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 (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West)

"Approval is overrated...Approval and disapproval alike satisfy those who deliver it more than those who receive it. I don't care for approval, and I don't mind doing without."
— Gregory Maguire

"The answer of course, is that the clock isn't meant to measure earthly time, but the time of the soul. Redemption and condemnation time. For the soul, each instant is always a minute short of judgment. "
— Gregory Maguire (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West)

"'You could say that Elphaba brought us together,' said Boq softly. 'I'm closer to her and so I'm closer to you.'

Galinda seemed to give up. She leaned her head back on the velvet cushions of the swing and said, 'Boq, you know despite myself I think you're a little sweet. You're a little sweet and you're a little charming and you're a little maddening and you're a little habit-forming.'

Boq held his breath.

'But you're little!' she concluded. 'You're a Munchkin, for god's sake!'

He kissed her, he kissed her, he kissed her, little by little by little."
— Gregory Maguire (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West)

"Yet who can say how our souls have been stamped by witnessing such a cruel drama? All souls are hostages to their human envelopes, but souls must decay and suffer at such indignity, don't you agree? "
— Gregory Maguire (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West)

"If you're ever in doubt, throw a pepper in the air. If it fails to come down, you have gone mad, so don't trust in anything."
— Gregory Maguire (Mirror Mirror)

"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

"If magic was present, it moved under the skin of the world, beneath the ability of human eyes to catch sight of it."
— Gregory Maguire (Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister)

"The future reshapes the memory of the past in the way it recalibrates significance; some episodes are advanced, others lose purchase."
— Gregory Maguire (A Lion Among Men)

"Let the green girl go!"
— Gregory Maguire (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West)

"The colossal might of wickedness: how we love to locate it massively elsewhere. But so much of it comes down to what each one of us does between breakfast and bedtime."
— Gregory Maguire

""Always the bridesmaid , never the bride."
"Always the godfather, never the god"."
— Gregory Maguire (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West)

"Galinda didn't often stop to consider whether she believed in what she said or not; the whole point of conversations was flow."
— Gregory Maguire (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West)

"'I shall pray for your soul,' promised Nessarose.
'I shall wait for your shoes,' Elphie answered.""
— Gregory Maguire (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West)

"Even God used silence as a strategy."
— Gregory Maguire (Mirror Mirror)

"Her sister's shoes. They sparkeled even in the darkening afternoon. They sparkeled like yellow diamonds, and embers of blood and thorny stars."
— Gregory Maguire (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West)

"A male usually had made up his mind before you began to talk to him -so why bother?- but a female, because her mind was more supple, was always prepared to become more disappointed in you than she had yet suspected possible."
— Gregory Maguire (A Lion Among Men)

"How shallow the words are, really - She is a witch. One might as well say, She is a mother, thinks Iris; that about covers the same terrain, doesn't it?"
— Gregory Maguire (Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister)