Quotes by "Gregory Maguire"

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.

Remember this: Nothing is written in the stars. Not these stars, nor any others. No one controls your destiny.

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.

The world was floods above and fire below

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.

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.

Every choice brings wisdom in its wake. If you got to have the wisdom first, it wouldn't be a choice - just policy. pg. 504

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

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.

I'm not looking for happiness. But I'm not looking for an ending either. pg. 544

(from the short story The Honorary Shepherds)...you can't be kicked out of a faith. Faith starts inside your heart and ends up in eternity. All you can be kicked out of is a building, which is the bus stop of faith, sort of, and what's a building?

No, she wasn't losing language. She was choking on it.

Le malheur est l'issue naturelle de la vie, et pourtant nous continuons à faire des bébés.

He had thought love as a policy made a lot of sense for those who could manage it, and anyone who could manage it belonged in religious life. The rest of us have to struggle with more ordinary love, the common or garden variety: love as a crippling condition. Love as a syndrome.

You could say that Elphaba brought us together,' said Boq softly. 'I'm closer to her and so I'm closer to you.' Galinda seemed to give up. She leaned her head back on the velvet cushions of the swing and said, 'Boq, you know despite myself I think you're a little sweet. You're a little sweet and you're a little charming and you're a little maddening and you're a little habit-forming.' Boq held his breath. But you're little!' she concluded. 'You're a Munchkin, for god's sake!' He kissed her, he kissed her, he kissed her, little by little by little.

Those times are over and gone, and good-riddance to them, too. We were hopelessly high-spirited. Now we're the thick-waisted generation, dragging along our children behind us and carrying our parents on our backs. And we're in charge, while the figures who used to command our respect are wasting away.

There's a reason we live in time. We are too small a flask [...] to tolerate too much knowing. Instead, truth must drip through us as through a pipette, to allow only moments of apprehension. Moments diffuse and miniature enough to be survived.

Of course. You get everything from books.

And what new life can emerge from a book. Any book, maybe.

Brrr, who had never admired books particularly...didn't remember that a mere book might reek of sex, possibility, fecundity. Yet a book has a ripe furrow and a yielding spine, he thought, and the nuances to be teased from its pages are nearly infinite in their variety and coquettish appeal. And what new life can emerge from a book. Any book, maybe.