2eca33c
|
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.
|
|
good
|
Gregory Maguire |
21586f2
|
Remember this: Nothing is written in the stars. Not these stars, nor any others. No one controls your destiny.
|
|
|
Gregory Maguire |
f52d535
|
Happy endings are still endings.
|
|
|
Gregory Maguire |
b0d8284
|
Where I'm from, we believe in all sorts of things that aren't true... we call it history.
|
|
|
Gregory Maguire |
d711fcc
|
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 |
f077d49
|
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 |
b37a9b9
|
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 |
7df0688
|
So he stalked her again. Love makes hunters of us all.
|
|
|
Gregory Maguire |
9f10d81
|
There was much to hate in this world and too much to love.
|
|
|
Gregory Maguire |
f7f18ec
|
You confuse not speaking with not listening.
|
|
|
Gregory Maguire |
effa7d4
|
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 |
9626c7c
|
The eye is always caught by light, but shadows have more to say.
|
|
|
Gregory Maguire |
95fdb08
|
The body apologizes to the soul for its errors, and the soul asks forgiveness for squatting in the body without invitation.
|
|
|
Gregory Maguire |
f3e2342
|
People always did like to talk, didn't they? That's why I call myself a witch now: the Wicked Witch of the West, if you want the full glory of it. As long as people are going to call you a lunatic anyway, why not get the benefit of it? It liberates you from convention.
|
|
accepting
liberation
gossip
|
Gregory Maguire |
7ef8a65
|
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 |
eaaac27
|
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 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 ..
|
|
|
Gregory Maguire |
e96c5cc
|
Because no retreat from the world can mask what is in your face.
|
|
sorrow
witch
remorse
guilt
|
Gregory Maguire |
65b1737
|
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 |
82ff558
|
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 |
61dd5a5
|
No one controls your destiny. Even at the very worst - there is always choice.
|
|
|
Gregory Maguire |
6c13644
|
The wickedness of men is that their power breeds stupidity and blindness.
|
|
|
Gregory Maguire |
90355b5
|
There are two kinds of anger: hot and cold. Boys and girls experience both, but as they grow up the anger separates according to the sex. Boys need hot anger to survive. They need inclination to fight, the drive to sink the knife into the flesh, the energy and initiative of fury. It's a requirement of hunting, of defense, of pride. Maybe of sex too. And girls need cold anger. They need the cold simmer, the ceaseless grudge, the talent to av..
|
|
|
Gregory Maguire |
089d7b5
|
Waking up was a daily cruelty, an affront, and she avoided it by not sleeping.
|
|
immortality
death
insomnia
|
Gregory Maguire |
4fe7a42
|
I never use the words HUMANIST or HUMANITARIAN, as it seems to me that to be human is to be capable of the most heinous crimes in nature.
|
|
|
Gregory Maguire |
df7e3d7
|
I shall pray for your soul,' promised Nessarose. I shall wait for your shoes,' Elphie answered.
|
|
|
Gregory Maguire |
10bf172
|
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 |
0db7d3f
|
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."
|
|
misdirection
wicked-witch-of-the-west
malice
wicked
|
Gregory Maguire |
2176309
|
In summer moonlight, she was dangerously, inebriatingly magnified.
|
|
|
Gregory Maguire |
f92f210
|
They moved together, blue diamonds on a green field.
|
|
|
Gregory Maguire |
8c5d58a
|
There were more ways to live than the ones given by one's superiors
|
|
|
Gregory Maguire |
d169b79
|
Animals are born who they are, accept it, and that is that. They live with greater peace than people do.
|
|
man
people
self-acceptance
peace
|
Gregory Maguire |
01f241d
|
I may not know how to fly but I know how to read, and that's almost the same thing.
|
|
|
Gregory Maguire |
fd121f8
|
Remember to breathe. It is after all, the secret of life.
|
|
secret
life
remember
|
Gregory Maguire |
961b39e
|
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 |
5f306a4
|
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 |
3cc05a5
|
The real thing about evil," said the Witch at the doorway, "isn't any of what you said. You figure out one side of it - the human side, say - and the eternal side goes into shadow. Or vice versa. It's like the old saw: What does a dragon in its shell look like? Well no one can ever tell, for as soon as you break the shell to see, the dragon is no longer in its shell. The real disaster of this inquiry is that it is the nature of evil to be s..
|
|
two-sides-to-the-story
vice-versa
secrecy
|
Gregory Maguire |
faba66e
|
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 |
9d23215
|
It's unbecoming," she agreed. "A perfect word for my new life. Unbecoming. I who have always been unbecoming am becoming un."
|
|
|
Gregory Maguire |
d5ec1e3
|
Always the bridesmaid , never the bride." Always the godfather, never the god"."
|
|
|
Gregory Maguire |
20ae112
|
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."
|
|
|
Gregory Maguire |
32a3670
|
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 |
913f8f5
|
The world unwraps itself to you, again and again as soon as you are ready to see it anew.
|
|
|
Gregory Maguire |
b16e716
|
Evil is an act, not an appetite. How many haven't wanted to slash the throat of some boor across the dining room table? Present company excepted of course. Everyone has the appetite. If you give in to it, it, that act is evil. The appetite is normal.
|
|
appetite
evil
|
Gregory Maguire |
4951bc9
|
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
|
|
woman
|
Gregory Maguire |