110+ Gregory Maguire Quotes On Education, Writing And Wicked Musical

Gregory Maguire is an American novelist, essayist, and professor. He is best known for his 1995 novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, a retelling of the classic novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum. Maguire is also the author of several other novels, including Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, Mirror Mirror, and After Alice. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Gregory Maguire on love, education, writing.

Top 10 Gregory Maguire Quotes

1. The eye is always caught by light, but shadows have more to say.
2. As long as people are going to call you lunatic anyway, why not get the benefit of it? It liberates you from convention.
3. Remember to breathe. It is after all, the secret of life.
4. From torched skyscrapers, men grew wings.
5. 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!
6. If magic was present, it moved under the skin of the world, beneath the ability of human eyes to catch sight of it.
7. Okay let's get this over with, no I'm not seasick, yes I've always been green, No I didn't eat grass as a child.
8. Growth and change were viewed as reactions to conditions met
9. quoting reminds me there are other people in the world besides only me. And other thoughts besides mine, and other ways of thinking.
10. Waking up was a daily cruelty, an affront, and she avoided it by not sleeping.

Gregory Maguire Short Quotes

• In summer moonlight, she was dangerously, inebriatingly magnified.
• It appears history is going to keep happening, despite our hopes for retirement.
• Because no retreat from the world can mask what is in your face.
• Does the devil ever struggle to be good again, or if so is he not a devil?
• The wickedness of men is that their power breeds stupidity and blindness.
• That's the real power of art, I think. Not to chide but to provoke challenge. Otherwise why bother?
• I wouldn't mind leaving myself behind if I could, but I don't know the way out.
• They moved together, blue diamonds on a green field.
• I am a forgettable leaf on a tree.
• at least i'm talkng to myself. instead of giving myself the cold shoulder

Gregory Maguire Quotes About Love

There was much to hate in this world and too much to love. — Gregory Maguire

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. — Gregory Maguire

...and he kissed her and kissed her and kissed her, little by little by little. — Gregory Maguire

That's what misbehavior is all about, just a little extra loving being asked for. — Gregory Maguire

This is why you shouldn't fall in love, it blinds you. Love is wicked distraction. — Gregory Maguire

They'd never been lovers, of course, not in the physical sense. But they'd been lovers as most of us manage, loving through expressions and gestures and the palm set softly upon the bruise at the necessary moment. Lovers by inclination rather than by lust. Lovers, that is, by love. — Gregory Maguire

Such silly things, children -- and so embarrassing -- because they keep changing themselves out of shame, out of a need to be loved or something. While animals are born who they are, accept it, and that is that. They live with greater peace than people do. — Gregory Maguire

So he stalked her again. Love makes hunters of us all. — Gregory Maguire

Forget us, forget us all, it makes no difference now, but don't forget we loved it when we were alive. — Gregory Maguire

The colossal might of wickedness: 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

Gregory Maguire Quotes About Writing

I was just about to begin writing Mirror Mirror, within about a week of it, when September 11, 2001 happened. I found myself incapable of caring about fiction-making for a number of months. — Gregory Maguire

When I write a book, I write very cleanly from page one to the last page. I hardly ever write out of sequence. — Gregory Maguire

I write because I admire the act of rationalization, of seeking clarity in one's understanding of the complexities of life, and I'm bad at it. I'm slow. Writing, which is an arduous and slow process, proceeds at the same rate as my sloth-like mind. — Gregory Maguire

I never write a book unless I can't help it. Something has to bother me, like a mosquito, until I have to do something to relieve the itch. — Gregory Maguire

Books fall open, you fall in. When you climb out again, you're a bit larger than you used to be. — Gregory Maguire

Gregory Maguire Quotes About Life

While I pride myself on trying to be creative in all areas of my life, I have occasionally gone overboard, like the time I decided to bring to a party a salad that I constructed, on a huge rattan platter, to look like a miniature scale model of the Gardens of Babylon. — Gregory Maguire

Elphaba looked like something between an animal and an Animal, like something more than life but not quite Life. — Gregory Maguire

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. Now and then, why shouldn't we hear a voice of prophecy. — Gregory Maguire

To consider what other people might say is hardly a good reason to take action or to defer it. You have your own life to live, Iris, and at its end, the only opinion that amounts to anything is that which God bestows — Gregory Maguire

It's been a long rocky life, with plenty of possibility but too much human ugliness. — Gregory Maguire

...No opening sermons concerning children with humps and fins for limbs, who nonetheless, immortal souls all, deserve life, liberty, and the pursuit of Happy Meals. — 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

In a sense, Out of Oz is an examination of how individuals keep going, keep reinventing themselves and their lives, even after life-altering complications have afflicted them. — Gregory Maguire

We only have babies when we're young enough not to know how grim life turns out. — Gregory Maguire

It's unbecoming," she agreed. "A perfect word for my new life. Unbecoming. I who have always been unbecoming am becoming un. — Gregory Maguire

Gregory Maguire Quotes About Builds

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

So she listened hard. And she began to evolve, because stories work their magic that way. They build conviction and erode conviction in equal measure. — Gregory Maguire

The sweet accident of coincidence is the best foundation on which to build. — Gregory Maguire

Gregory Maguire Famous Quotes And Sayings

She watched the sun bleed water out of the icicle. Warm and cold working together to make an icicle. Warm and cold anger working together to make a fury, a fury worthy enough to use as a weapon against the old things that still needed fighting. — Gregory Maguire

The world rarely shrieks its meaning at you. It whispers, in private languages and obscure modalities, in arcane and quixotic imagery, through symbol systems in which every element has multiple meanings determined by juxtaposition. — Gregory Maguire

The body apologizes to the soul for its errors, and the soul asks forgiveness for squatting in the body without invitation. — Gregory Maguire

Science, my dears, 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 rend, 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. — 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. — Gregory Maguire

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

Just follow that one road the whole time!... I hope they don't get lost, I'm so bad at giving directions. — Gregory Maguire

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

I had written childrens books for 14 years before I published Wicked. And none of them were poorly reviewed, and none of them sold enough for me to be able to buy a bed. — Gregory Maguire

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

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

Behold the male beast roaring in the jungle for his mate," said Elphaba. "See how the female beast giggles behind a shrub while she organizes her face to say, Pardon dear, did you say something? — Gregory Maguire

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

It’s the place of the story, beginning here, in the meadow of late summer flowers, thriving before the Atlantic storms drive wet and winter upon them all. — Gregory Maguire

Yes, I'm nervous. You'll find in time most people are. They simply learn better how to disguise it, and sometimes, if they're wise, how to use their anxiety to serve the public good. — Gregory Maguire

...but the tale itself is a trickster and doesn't hesitate to lie. It is anachronistic with a vengeance. It emerges always and everywhere, overt or disguised, pureblood or hybrid, and healthy as sin. — Gregory Maguire

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. — Gregory Maguire

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

Have you ever noticed when you look in a mirror, unless youre really depressed or something, the person in the mirror generally looks a little more competent, a little more curious, a little more intelligent than you actually feel yourself to be? They often look more interesting and more soulful. — 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 you from convention. — Gregory Maguire

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

The melody faded like a rainbow after a storm, or like winds calming down at last; and what was left was calm, and possibility, and relief. — Gregory Maguire

...the reasons just reassemble themselves in different patterns every time I think about it. — Gregory Maguire

I like classical music of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and I adore Bach above all. — Gregory Maguire

Forgive us our trespasses," says Margarethe, "and get out of our way. — Gregory Maguire

Why lock yourself in your own cage when someone is handing you a key? — Gregory Maguire

Always the bridesmaid , never the bride." Always the godfather, never the god". — Gregory Maguire

I do love to sing. Had I a longer set of thigh bones and a sweeter voice, I should have loved to be a performer. — Gregory Maguire

Small steps to the madhouse still get us there at last — Gregory Maguire

Sorrow has a name, and its name is loneliness. Sorrow has a shape, and its shape is absence. Sorrow is a sickness like any other. — Gregory Maguire

The devil is a very big angel, but a very little man. — Gregory Maguire

Not an ugly color, Nanny thought. Just not a human color. — Gregory Maguire

My first job was scooping ice cream at Friendly's in Albany, New York. I hated the work, most of my colleagues, and the uniform, and I more or less lost my taste for ice cream permanently. — Gregory Maguire

Even God used silence as a strategy. — Gregory Maguire

When the times are a crucible, when the air is full of crisis, those who are the most themselves are the victims. — Gregory Maguire

I don't like work like that. I am the silent partner. I work through events, I live on the sidelines, I dabble in causes and effects, I watch how the misbegotten creatures of this world live their lives. — Gregory Maguire

And a puzzle is for the piecing together, especially for the young, who still believe it can be done. — Gregory Maguire

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

No one is exempt from grief. — Gregory Maguire

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

...What is the use of beauty? i have lived my life surrounded by painters, and still I do not know the answer. But i suspect, some days, that beauty helps protect the spirit of mankind, swaddle it and succor it, so that we might survive. Beauty is no end in itself, but if it makes or lives less miserable so that we might be more kind-well, then, lets have beauty, painted on our porcelain, hanging on our walls, ringing through our stories. — Gregory Maguire

Skibbereen have a hard time at [math]; the best that the smartest of them can do with adding two plus two is guessing: three plus one. Correct, sort of, but not always useful. — Gregory Maguire

Those times are over and gone, and good riddance to them, too. We were hopelessly high-spirited. Now we're the tick-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. — Gregory Maguire

I actually prefer female voices to listen to, mostly, but among the male singers whose voices I like are Jeff Buckley, Art Garfunkel, that sort of voice. Contemporary crooners rather than rockers. — Gregory Maguire

I hate New Year's Eve. One more chance to remember that you haven't yet done what you wanted. And to pretend it doesn't matter. — Gregory Maguire

Only he with the hobbled foot fully knows the beauty of running. Only he with the severed ear can apprehend what the sweetest music must sound like. Our ailments complete us. — 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

He knew about being alone. The weather was always cold there. — Gregory Maguire

The moon rose, an opalescent goddess tipping light from her harsh maternal scimitar. — Gregory Maguire

Immortality is a chancy thing; it cannot be promised or earned. Perhaps it cannot even be identified for what it is. — Gregory Maguire

Children are wickeder than adults, they have no sense of restraint. — Gregory Maguire

Maybe the definition of home is the place where you are never forgiven. So you may always belong there, bound by guilt. And maybe the cost of belonging is worth it. — Gregory Maguire

I learned failure early and mastered it. — Gregory Maguire

Everyone dies. It's a question of where and how, that's all. — Gregory Maguire

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

You're fun to look at," decided Galinda. Boq's face fell. "Fun?" he said. I'd give a lot to achieve fun," Elphaba said. "The best I usually hope for is stirring, and when people say that they're usually referring to digestion- — Gregory Maguire

Are you the dart?" he said. "Are you the knife? The fuse?" She said (though he wasn't convinced): "My deane, my poppet, I am too green to walk into a public place and do something bad. — Gregory Maguire

The momentum of the mind can be vexingly, involuntarily capricious. — Gregory Maguire

I mean, evil and boredom. Evil and ennui. Evil and the lack of stimulation. Evil and sluggish blood. — Gregory Maguire

She is no longer I, she is too long ago, she is only she. — Gregory Maguire

Well, the family always was bright, and brightness, as you know, decays brilliantly. — Gregory Maguire

...perhaps charity is the kind of beauty that we comprehend the best because we miss it the most. — Gregory Maguire

Galinda didn't often stop to consider whether she believed in what she said or not; the whole point of conversations was flow. — Gregory Maguire

Animals are born who they are, accept it, and that is that. They live with greater peace than people do. — Gregory Maguire

Some said the original evil was the vacuum caused by the Fairy Queen Lurline leaving us alone here. When goodness removes itself, the space it occupies corrodes and becomes evil and maybe slpits apart and multiplies. So every evil thing is a sign of the absence of deity — Gregory Maguire

She wasn't afraid of doing good or of resisting evil. She was merely afraid she might not be able to tell the difference. — Gregory Maguire

The world unwraps itself to you, again and again as soon as you are ready to see it anew. — Gregory Maguire

To look into the mirror is to see the future, in blood and rubies. — Gregory Maguire

And it's a cold place the world, especially when warmed by arsen. — Gregory Maguire

Happy endings are still endings. — Gregory Maguire

However in the world did her skin come green?" Nanny wondered, stupidly, for Melena blanched and Frex reddened, and the baby held her breath as if trying to turn blue to please them all. Nanny had to slap her to make her breath again. — Gregory Maguire

No one controls your destiny. Even at the very worst - there is always choice. — Gregory Maguire

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

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. — Gregory Maguire

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

Life Lessons by Gregory Maguire

1. Gregory Maguire's work emphasizes the importance of understanding the complexities of human nature and the power of empathy.
2. He also demonstrates the importance of re-examining traditional stories and exploring the potential for new interpretations.
3. His work encourages readers to think critically about the world around them and to consider the consequences of their decisions.