"That's what misbehavior is all about, just a little extra loving being asked for." ~ Ama Clutch
"You can't divorce your particulars (the particulars of your existence) from politics." ~ Elphaba (The Wicked Witch of the West)
"What really is the difference between science and sorcery?" ~ Glinda (The Good Witch of the East)
"Science...is the systematic dissection of nature, to reduce it to working parts that more or less obey universal laws. Sorcery moves in the opposite direction. It doesn't end, it repairs. It is synthesis rather than analysis. It builds anew rather than revealing the old. In the hands of someone truly skilled...it is Art. One might in fact call it the Superior, or the Finest, Art. It bypasses the Fine Arts of painting and drama and recitation. It doesn't pose or represent the world. It BECOMES." ~ Miss Greyling
"Can there be a higher desire than to change the world?....really to order change? To revise the misshapen, reshape the mistaken, to justify the ragged error of a universe?" ~ Miss Greyling
"Perhaps every accidental cluster of people has a short period of grace, in between the initial shyness and prejudice on the one hand and eventual repugnance and betrayal on the other."
"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."
"Woe is the natural end of life, yet we go on having babies." ~ Melena, the Witch's mother
"We only have babies when we're young enough not to know how grim life turns out. Once we really get the full measure of it - we're slow learners, we women - we dry up in disgust and sensibly halt production." ~ Nanny
"History crawls along on the peg legs of small individual lives...and at the same time larger eternal forces converge. You can't attend to both arenas at once." ~ Frexspar, married to the Witch's mother
"A strong fist does wonders in a rotten situation. Walk softly but carry a big stick" ~ Madame Morrible
:a man is always good for the public face of power" ~ MAdame Morrible
"political uprisings - the stupid senseless kind, in which strong dumb people enjoy getting killed for the sake of political changes that'll be rolled back within the decade. Add such meaning to meaningless lives....One can't imagine any other reason for it." ~ Madame Morrible
"people with managing skills....people with gumption. In a word, women." ~ Madame Morrible
"Gossip is unreliable" ~ Elphaba (The Wicked Witch of the West) "Gossip is instructive....It tells which way the wind is blowing." ~ The Wizard of Oza
"For the soul, each instant is always a minute short of judgment" ~ Frexspar
The use of "the word 'immoral'....In the young...is ridiculous, in the old...is sententious and reactionary and an early warning sign of apoplexy. In the middle-aged, who love and fear the idea of a moral life the most, it is hypocritical." ~ The Wizard of Oz
"All our lives are activity without meaning; we burrow ratlike into life and we squirm ratlike through it and ratlike we are flung into our graves at the end....Beneath the apparent sham and indignity of our ratlike lives, a humble pattern and meaning still applies!" ~ The Time Dragon's Dwarf
"it is not for...a citizen to assess what is wrong. This is the job of leaders, and why we exist." ~ The Wizard of Oz
"poetry is the highest form of self-deception" ~ Elphaba (The Wicked Witch of the West)
"it seems to me that to be human is to be capable of the most heinous crimes in nature." ~ Elphaba (The Wicked Witch of the West"
"You can only be a martyr if you know what you are dying for, and CHOOSE it." ~ Elphaba (The Wicked Witch of the West)
"How can you have a conscience if you don't have a soul?" ~ Fiyero
"doubt (is) more energy efficient than conviction" ~ Fiyero
"Love makes hunters of us all."
"No one knows the color of a soul." ~ Melena quoting her husband Broth Frexspar
"Stupid people say a lot of stupid things." ~ Melena (The Witch's Mother)
"What lives in folk memory is truer than how some artsy poet says it. In folk memory evil always predates good." ~ Oatsie Manglehand
"To the grim poor there need be no pour quois tale about where evil arises; it just arises; it always is. One never learns how the witch became wick...." ~ Oatsie Manglehand
"as women (wear) cologne, men (wear) proofs, to secure their own sense of themselves, and thus to be attractive." ~ Elphaba (The Wicked Witch of the West)
"animals are born who they are, accept it, and that is that. They live with greater peace than people do." ~ Elphaba (The Wicked Witch of the West)
"There (are) more ways to live than the ones given by one's superiors." ~ Elphaba (The Wicked Witch of the West"
"When the times are a crucible, when the air is full of crisis,...those who are the most themselves are the victims." ~ The Elephant goddess/matriarch of the Scrow
"Is life worth living in the wrong form?" ~ Elphaba (The WIcked WItch of the West) "The interior doesn't change...except by self-involvement. Of which be not afraid, and also beware." ~ Princess Nastoya/Elephant goddess of the Scrow
"Nothing is written in the stars....No one controls your destiny." ~ Princess Nastoya/Elephant goddess of the Scrow
I secretly believe people enjoy public grieving and atonement just a little bit. ~ Sarima (Dowager Princess of the Arjikis & Fiyero's wife)
Everything is gorgeous once it's gone. ~ Nanny
"The more civilized we become, the more horrendous our entertainments." ~ Brother Frexspar
"Everybody's on your side until they want something from you." ~ The Cow
"clasping his arms behind his head (is) the typical male response to happiness"
"Boys study, girls know, That's the way that lessons go. Boys learn, girls forger, That's the way of lessons yet." ~ Nanny
"To look in glass is to see the future." ~ Turtle Heart
"prophecy is merely guesswork and fear" ~ Brother Frex
When words are to speak in the air, actions must to follow ~ Turtle Heart
"There (is) something vulgar about travelling in jewels.....'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.'" ~ Galinda
"if ministers are effective, they're good at asking questions to get you to think. I don't think they're supposed to have the answers." Not necessarily." ~ Elphaba, The Wicked Witch of the West
"Evil exists... and its name is Boredom, and ministers are the guiltiest crew of all." ~ Galinda
"one expects poetry, if it is Poetry, to offend. It is the right of Art." ~ Madame Morrible
"all poetry sanctif(ies) life" ~ Madame Morrible
"the real power of art, I think (is) not to chide but to provoke challenge. Otherwise why bother?" ~ Elphaba (The Wicked Witch of the West)
"Tribal mothers always tell their children that there are two kinds of anger: how and cold. Boys and girls experience both, but as they grow up the Maybe of sex, too..... And girls need cold anger. They need the cold simmer, the ceaseless grudge, the talent to avoid forgiveness, the sidestepping of compromise. They need to know when they say something that they will never back down, ever, ever. It's the compensation for a more limited scope in the world. Cross a man and you struggle, one of you wins, you adjust and go on - or you lie there dead. Cross a woman and the universe is changed, once again, for cold anger requires an eternal vigilance in all matters of slight and offense." ~ Sarima, Dowager Empress of the Arjikis (Fiyero's Wife)
"That's what misbehavior is all about, just a little extra loving being asked for." ~ Ama Clutch