Gregory Maguire Quotes: 11

• People who claim that 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.

  Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

• Waking up was a daily cruelty, an affront, and she avoided it by not sleeping.

  A Lion Among Men

• 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.

• But she woke up just then, and in the moonlight covered herself with a blanket. She smiled at him drowsily and called him "Yero, my hero,"and that melted his heart.

  Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

• Remember to breathe. It is after all, the secret of life.

  A Lion Among Men

• Of course. You get everything from books.

  Out of Oz

• The momentum of the mind can be vexingly, involuntarily capricious.

  A Lion Among Men

• 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.

  Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

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

  A Lion Among Men

• The world was floods above and fire below

  Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

• 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.

  Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West