Quotes by Gregory Maguire

About Gregory Maguire:

Gregory Maguire is an American novelist. He is the author of the novels Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, and many other novels for adults and children. Many of Maguire's adult novels are revisionist retellings of classic children's stories: for example, in Wicked he transformed the Wicked Witch of the West from L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and its 1939 film adaption into the misunderstood protagonist Elphaba. Wicked was turned into one of the most successful Broadway musicals of all-time, of the same name. One of Maguire's short stories is featured in the 2004 compilation Gothic! Ten Original Dark Tales.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

It isn’t hard to find evil in this world. Evil is always more easily imagined than good, somehow.

Gregory Maguire

The real thing about evil… you figure out one side of it - the human side, say - and the eternal side goes into shadow. Or vice versa. The real disaster of this inquiry is that it is the nature of evil to be secret.

Gregory Maguire

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.

Gregory Maguire

The nature of the world is to be calm, and enhance and support life, and evil is an absence of the inclination of matter to be at peace.

Gregory Maguire

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-al...

Gregory Maguire

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...

Gregory Maguire

Galinda didn't see the verdant world through the glass of the carriage; she saw her own reflection instead. She had the nearsightedness of youth. She reasoned that because she was beautiful she was significant, though what she signified, and to whom,...

Gregory Maguire

What's big, thick, makes the earth move, and wants to have its way with you?" "I don't know, but can you introduce me?

Gregory Maguire

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 y...

Gregory Maguire

Because no retreat from the world can mask what is in your face.

Gregory Maguire

Where I'm from, we believe in all sorts of things that aren't true... we call it history.

Gregory Maguire

At its most elemental, a spell is no more than a recipe for change.

Gregory Maguire

Oh, everything is gorgeous once it's gone.

Gregory Maguire

The world was floods above and fire below

Gregory Maguire

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 yo...

Gregory Maguire

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

Do you expect to learn anything at Shiz?” he asked. “I have already learned not to speak to strangers.” “Then I will introduce myself and we will be strangers no longer. I am Dillamond.” “I am disinclined to know you.

Gregory Maguire

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 affect...

Gregory Maguire

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 figur...

Gregory Maguire

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.

Gregory Maguire

I like the sound of words, but I don't ever really expect my slow, slanted impression of the world to change by what I read.

Gregory Maguire

Author Bio

  • NameGregory Maguire
  • DescriptionNovelist
  • BornJune 9, 1954
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionWriter; Novelist