Gregory Maguire citations

Page 3

“The future reshapes the memory of the past in the way it recalibrates significance; some episodes are advanced, others lose purchase.”

“There were people everywhere but no one was mine, and I was no one's.”

“He knew about being alone. The weather was always cold there.”

“Indeed, she often wondered if she were dead, or dying from the inside out, and that was the root of her calm, the reason she could surrender her character.”

“A man is called a traitor, or liberator. A rich man is a theif or philanthropist. Is one a crusader or ruthless invader? It's all in which label is able to persist.”

“The moon rose, an opalescent goddess tipping light from her harsh maternal scimitar.”

“The melody faded like a rainbow after a storm, or like winds calming down at last; and what was left was calm, and possibility, and relief.”

“Wisdom is not the understanding of mystery. Wisdom is accepting that mystery is beyond understanding. That's what makes it mystery.”

“Wrong takes an awful long time to be proven, in my experience.”

“When the times are a crucible, when the air is full of crisis, those who are the most themselves are the victims.”

“Well, the family always was bright, and brightness, as you know, decays brilliantly.”

“I take responsibility only for the future, not the past. The past can't hurt you the way the future can.”

“The thing about a mirror is this: The one who stares into it is condemned to consider the world from her own perspective.”

“However in the world did her skin come green?" Nanny wondered, stupidly, for Melena blanched and Frex reddened, and the baby held her breath as if trying to turn blue to please them all. Nanny had to slap her to make her breath again.”

“I hate to be obvious," added the Scarecrow, "but you'd have saved yourself a heap of trouble if you weren't too cheap to invest in a leash, Dorothy.”

“Not an ugly color, Nanny thought. Just not a human color.”

“Elphaba looked like something between an animal and an Animal, like something more than life but not quite Life.”

“Her sister's shoes. They sparkeled even in the darkening afternoon. They sparkeled like yellow diamonds, and embers of blood and thorny stars.”

“Of course. You get everything from books.”

“Perhaps family itself, like beauty, is temporary, and no discredit need attach to impermanence.”

“Don't wish,"said Rain, "don't start. Wishing only…”

“Begging your pardon, sir…. One population can't make peace with another by force.”

“That's all I want- to do no harm.”

“quoting reminds me there are other people in the world besides only me. And other thoughts besides mine, and other ways of thinking.”

“I am a forgettable leaf on a tree.”

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