“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, quote from Son of a Witch
“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, quote from Son of a Witch
“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, quote from Son of a Witch
“I learned failure early and mastered it.”
― Gregory Maguire, quote from Son of a Witch
“It isn't whether you do it well or ill, it's that you do it all.”
― Gregory Maguire, quote from Son of a Witch
“Wisdom is not the understanding of mystery. Wisdom is accepting that mystery is beyond understanding. That's what makes it mystery.”
― Gregory Maguire, quote from Son of a Witch
“I hate to be obvious," added the Scarecrow, "but you'd have saved yourself a heap of trouble if you weren't too cheap to invest in a leash, Dorothy.”
― Gregory Maguire, quote from Son of a Witch
“Begging your pardon, sir....One population can't make peace with another by force.”
― Gregory Maguire, quote from Son of a Witch
“Everyone dies. It's a question of where and how, that's all.”
― Gregory Maguire, quote from Son of a Witch
“Before you save anyone else, you have to save yourself. otherwise, you'rejust a bundle of tics, a stringed puppet manipulated by the chance and the insensible wind.”
― Gregory Maguire, quote from Son of a Witch
“at least i'm talkng to myself. instead of giving myself the cold shoulder”
― Gregory Maguire, quote from Son of a Witch
“We are loping sequences of chemical conversions, acting ourselves converted. We are twists of genes acting ourselves twisted; we are wicks of burning neuroses acting ourselves wicked. And nothing to be done about it. And nothing to be done about it.”
― Gregory Maguire, quote from Son of a Witch
“Forget us, forget us all, it makes no difference now, but don't forget we loved it when we were alive.”
― Gregory Maguire, quote from Son of a Witch
“A capacity for inferiority in the growing adult is threatened by the temptation by squander that capacity ruthlessly, to revel in hallowness. The syndrom especially plaques anyone who lives behind a mask. An elephant in her disquise as a human princess, a scarecrow with painted features, a glittering tiara under which to glow and glide in anonymous glamour. A witch's hat, a wizards stole, a scholars gown, a soldiers dress sartorials. A hundred ways to duck the question: how will I live with myself now that I nkow what I know.”
― Gregory Maguire, quote from Son of a Witch
“How could anyone live without flying?”
― Gregory Maguire, quote from Son of a Witch
“A notion of character, not so much discredited as simply forgotten, once held that people only came into themselves partway through their lives. They woke up, were they lucky enough to have consciousness, in the act of doing something they already knew how to do…”
― Gregory Maguire, quote from Son of a Witch
“Under every roof, a story, just as behind every brow, a history”
― Gregory Maguire, quote from Son of a Witch
“I learned to fly on a broom," he said, rolling up his sleeves. "I can learn to milk a goat, I bet." Though flying on a broom proved to be the easier task, he found.”
― Gregory Maguire, quote from Son of a Witch
“The wall read:
ELPHIE LIVES
OZMA LIVES
THE WIZARD LIVES
and then
EVERYONE LIVES BUT US.”
― Gregory Maguire, quote from Son of a Witch
“If the unlettered farmers of Munchkinland and the factory workers of Gillikin believe that their fate is being determined by how the Time Dragon dreams them up, they don't need to bother to take responsibility for their actions or for changing their class and station in life.”
― Gregory Maguire, quote from Son of a Witch
“Glinda waved dismissively. Then she tucked her hand against her mouth and bit her knuckles. It was hard to tell if her pretty ways were studied or innate.
"Oh, oh," she managed, "I don't know that I'll see you again- and you remind me so of her.”
― Gregory Maguire, quote from Son of a Witch
“Sometimes thought Liir-his first thought in weeks and weeks-sometimes I hate this marvelous land of ours. It's so much like home, and then it holds out on you.”
― Gregory Maguire, quote from Son of a Witch
“It's the work that's important, not the individual who does it.”
― Gregory Maguire, quote from Son of a Witch
“Liir didn’t know what to say to that; he wasn’t sure what husbandry was.
“Animal husbandry,” Trism explained, though in the noise of the bar, Liir couldn’t tell if he said Animal or animal, the sentient or the nonsentient creature.
“Training for military uses,” said Trism at last. “Are you slow, or are you falling in love with me?"
”
― Gregory Maguire, quote from Son of a Witch
“In the end, all disguises must drop.”
― Gregory Maguire, quote from Son of a Witch
“You need my help? What for? Bread, cash, a fake identity to help you slip sideways through the cracks? Tell me what you need, tell me why I should help, and I'll see what I can do. In memory of Elphaba. You knew her." Her head titled again, but up, this time, and it was to keep the sudden wetness from spilling into her carefully colored false eyelashes. "You knew my Elphie!”
― Gregory Maguire, quote from Son of a Witch
“The colossal might of wickedness, he thought: how we love to locate it massively elsewhere. But so much of it comes down to what each one of us does between breakfast and bedtime.”
― Gregory Maguire, quote from Son of a Witch
“Chovia bastante naquela manhã. A luz tinha um tom acinzentado e musguento devido às nuvens baixas. Teve de admitir que a menina não era um cadáver. Estava viva. Talvez tivesse nascido gelada, mas agora estava viva. Ainda suja com o sangue do nascimento e o início aguado das suas fezes, Liir levou-a até à porta e ergue-a para a chuva. Lavada, revelou-se verde.”
― Gregory Maguire, quote from Son of a Witch
“IMBECILE!" the chef shouted. "Next time why don't you just put your whole HAND in the food, hey? Yes, your whole hand, or maybe your FACE! I arrange the food on plates with care, are you understanding what I am telling you? It is part of the art form of cooking, yes? A lovely plate of food is a thing of beauty! And then you, NUMBSKULL, come along and put your fat greasy FINGERS all over my plate, and SHAKE the plate, and move my food all around the plate until it looks like pigs' vomit!"
"Chef Vlad!" I cried out in delight.”
― Kenneth Oppel, quote from Skybreaker
“Amazing where your life can deposit you before you know it. One, two, three, and you're on a completely different road than the one you'd always expected to be on at this point in your life. There is no compass when such things happen, no rules and no maps to guide you, and no one who cares if the sun is glaring or if the asphalt is melting beneath your tires.”
― Alice Hoffman, quote from Blue Diary
“If you let people believe that you are weak, sooner or later you’re going to have to kill them.”
― Don Winslow, quote from Savages
“Relief washed over me like that first air-conditioned breeze on a hot summer day.”
― Rachel Vincent, quote from My Soul to Lose
“The long, long road over the moors and up into the forest - who trod it into being first of all? Man, a human being, the first that came here. There was no path before he came.”
― Knut Hamsun, quote from Growth of the Soil
BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
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