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February 5 - March 2, 2020
‘Tis very strange Men should be so fond of being thought wickeder than they are.
Born in the morning, Woe without warning; Afternoon child Woeful and wild; Born in the evening, Woe ends in grieving. Night baby borning Same as the morning.
“History crawls along on the peg legs of small individual lives,” said Frex, “and at the same time larger eternal forces converge. You can’t attend to both arenas at once.”
“Words are words, and what’s said is said!”
“Brother Frexspar,” said Bfee, the mayor of Rush Margins, “could you perhaps tone down your harangue until we get a chance to see what fresh new form temptation might take?” “You have no mettle to resist new forms,” said Frex, spitting.
Don’t tempt yourself by exposing yourself to a known temptation.
For the soul, each instant is always a minute short of judgment.
To ponder.
“Aren’t children divine?” said Nanny.
I would express this as sarcastic.
“The overdressed traveler betrays more interest in being seen than in seeing,”
Alas! For impropriety, The guillotine of piety. To remedy society Indulge not to satiety In mirth and shameless gaiety. Choose sobering sobriety. Behave as if the deity Approaches in its mystery, And greet it with sonority. Let your especial history Be built upon sorority Whose Virtues do exemplify, And Social Good thus multiply. Animals should be seen and not heard.
“Well that’s not poetry, that’s propaganda, and it’s not even good propaganda at that.”
“Well I know you’re besotted and I feel somewhat responsible.
The wickedness of men is that their power breeds stupidity and blindness,”
“Women are weaker, but their weakness is full of cunning and an equally rigid moral certainty. Since their arena is smaller, their capacity for real damage is less alarming. Though being more intimate they are the more treacherous.”
There were racking cries from the mother Bear, and then a silence in the world outside the heavy damask drapes. Was it an accident I saw that, Fiyero wondered, looking at the manager with new eyes. Or is it just that the world unwraps itself to you, again and again, as soon as you are ready to see it anew?
“To the grim poor there need be no pour quoi tale about where evil arises; it just 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 a devil? It is at the very least a question of definitions.”
Elphie thought: Such silly things, children—and so embarrassing—because they keep changing themselves out of shame, out of a need to be loved or something. While animals are born who they are, accept it, and that is that. They live with greater peace than people do.
“But the choice to save yourself can itself be deadly,” said the Princess Nastoya.
“Because no retreat from the world can mask what is in your face,” she answered.
“Remember this: Nothing is written in the stars. Not these stars, nor any others. No one controls your destiny.”
“Where’s mine?” said Liir. “Don’t see one with your name on it,” said Irji. “Look: Irji. Manek. Nor. Guess Preenella left it for you at your old house. Where did you used to live?” “I don’t know,” said Liir, and started to cry.
“And a recipe on this page. It says ‘Of apples with black skin and white flesh: to fill the stomach with greed unto Death.’”
One morning, Nor was it. She kept finding Manek easily, because Liir always hid near him and gave him away. Manek lost his patience. “I always get caught, because you’re so hopeless. Why can’t you hide well?”
“I can’t hide in the well,” Liir said, misunderstanding.
“You’re always complaining,” Manek said, giving him a hand. “That’s why we don’t like you, you know.” “Well, everybody’s mean to me,” Liir said.
Cross a woman and the universe is changed, once again, for cold anger requires an eternal vigilance in all matters of slight and offense.”
Perhaps Nessie didn’t want the position of Eminence, and was just as incarcerated there as her older sister was here. Perhaps Elphaba owed her the chance of liberty. Yet how much really could you owe other people? Was it endless?
“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 difference 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?”
People who claim that they’re evil are usually no worse than the rest of us.” He sighed. “It’s people who claim that they’re good, or anyway better than the rest of us, that you have to be wary of.”
No one controls your destiny. Even at the very worst—there is always choice.
“Evil isn’t doing bad things, it’s feeling bad about them afterward.
“The nature of the world is to be calm, and enhance and support life, and evil is an absence of the inclination of matter to be at peace.”
“Evil is an early or primitive stage of moral development. All children are fiends by nature. The criminals among us are only those who didn’t progress . . .”
“Evil’s an incarnated character, an incubus or a succubus. It’s an other. It’s not us.”
“Evil isn’t a thing, it’s not a person, it’s an attribute like beauty . . .” “It’s a power, like wind . . .” “It’s an infection . . .” “It’s metaphysical, essentially: the corruptibility of creation—”
Evil is inanely corporeal, humans causing one another pain, no more no less—”
Everyone has the appetite. If you give in to it, it, that act is evil. The appetite is normal.”
The real disaster of this inquiry is that it is the nature of evil to be secret.”
“The devil is a very big angel, but a very little man. But I have no name in this world, so don’t bother with me.”
“A private audience with the Time Dragon itself.”
“Act One: The Birth of Holiness.”
“Act Two: The Birth of Evil.”
“Act Three,” he said. “The Marriage of the Sacred and the Wicked.”
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?
How deeply bound by cords of family anger we all are, thought the Witch. None of us breaks free.
“It isn’t hard to find evil in this world,” said the Witch. “Evil is always more easily imagined than good, somehow.”
Always the bridesmaid, never the bride.”
“Always the godfather, never the god,”
Good riddance to bad rubbish. Who needs forgiveness now? Well?”
“Thunder at night, devil’s delight,”
“Up, you, up,” shouted the Witch, “I’ll have done with you before you have done with me!”
