Elphaba Wicked Quotes

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

It's just life, so keep dancing through.

Give me something to go on, here. What kind of black magic are we talking? Elphaba,Wicked Witch of the West-type stuff or Slytherin-type stuff?

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-

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

It's over the garden wall and we're going to see the Wizard, come what may and hell to pay. -Elphaba

GLINDA: Well,I'm a public figure now! People expect me to-- ELPHABA: Lie? GLINDA: (fiercely) Be encouraging! And what exactly have you been doing? Besides riding on around on that filthy thing! ELPHABA: Well, we can't all come and go by bubble. Whose invention was that, the Wizard's? Of course, even if it wasn't, I'm sure he'd still take credit for it. GLINDA: Yes, well, a lot of us are taking things that don't belong to us, aren't we? Uh oh! The two stare daggers at each other, then... ELPHABA: Now, wait just a clock-tick. I know it's difficult for that blissful blonde brain of yours to comprehend that someone like him could actually choose someone like me!But it's happened. It's real. And you can wave that ridiculous wand all you want, you can't change it! He never belonged to you -- he doesn't love you, he never did! He loves me!

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.

I wouldn't mind leaving myself behind if I could, but I don't know the way out.

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?

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.

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

I take all the credit in the world for my own foolishness.

[after discussion about what evil is, a question asked to Elphaba on why she killed Madame Morrible] "Why did you do it?" asked the hostess with spirit. The Witch shrugged. "For fun? Maybe evil is an art form.

Why should I keep myself so safe?” he asked her, but he was almost asking himself. What is there in my life worth preserving? With a good wife back there in the mountains, serviceable as an old spoon, dry in the heart from having been scared of marriage since she was six? With three children so shy of their father, the Prince of the Arjikis, that they will hardly come near him? With a careworn clan moving here, moving there, going through th same disputes, herding the same herds, as thy have done for five hundred years? And me, with a shallow and undirected mind, no artfulness in word or habit, no especial kindness toward the world? What is there that makes my life worth preserving? “I love you,” said Elphaba. “So that’s that then, and that’s it,” he answered her and himself. “And I love you. So I promise to be careful.

She put her face against Glinda's and kissed her. 'Hold out, if you can,' she murmured, and kissed her again. 'Hold out, my sweet.' [...] It was astounding how quickly she became camouflaged in the ragamuffin variety of street life on the Emerald City. Or maybe it was foolish tears blurring Glinda's vision. Elphaba hadn't cried, of course. Her head had turned quickly as she stepped down, not to hide her tears but to soften the fact of their absence. But the sting, to Glinda, was real.

The Witch was too much afraid of the dark to dare go in Dorothy's room at night to take the shoes, and her dread of water was greater than her fear of the dark.

Both: "There's been some confusion for you see my roommate is ..." Galinda: "Unusually and exceedingly peculiar and altogether quite impossible to describe." Elphaba: "... Blonde.

Elphaba: "I just wish ..." Fiyero: "What?" Elphaba: "I wish I could be beautiful ... for you." Fiyero: "Elphaba ..." Elphaba: "Don't tell me that I am. You don't need to lie to me." Fiyero: "It's not lying! It's looking at things another way.

Not old enough to feel like an adult , really, but old enough to look like one, and to know the distinction between being carefree and careless.

Do good though, will you?" She blinked brightly at the green girl. "If not for your parents or your grandmother, then for me?

Perhaps, thought Nanny, little green Elphaba chose her own sex, and her own color, and to hell with her parents.

They did the best they could. Besides I was hardly a stranger. I had known your grandmother. We were like this." She twined her second and third fingers together as if they might strangle each other.

In her time Nor Tigelaar had faced insurrectionists and collaborationists and war profiteers. She'd endured abduction and prison and self-mutilation. She'd sold herself in sex not for cash but for military information that might come in handy to the resistance, and in so doing she'd come across a rum variety of human types.

Fiyero: "Why is it that every time I see you, you're causing some sort of commotion?" Elphaba: "I don't cause commotions, I am one." Fiyero: "That's for sure." Elphaba: "Oh! So you think I should just keep my mouth shut! Is that what you're saying?" Fiyero: "No, I'm ..." Elphaba: "Do you think I want to be this way? Do you think I want to care this much? Don't you know how much easier my life would be if I didn't?" Fiyero: "Do you ever let anyone else talk?" Elphaba: "Oh, sorry ... But can I just say one more thing? You could have just walked away back there." Fiyero: "So?" Elphaba: "So, no matter how shallow and self-absorbed you tend to be ..." Fiyero: "Excuse me, there's no pretense here. I happen to be genuinely self-absorbed and deeply shallow." Elphaba: "No you're not. Or you wouldn't be so unhappy.

Well, your opinion is as good as hers, I think,” said Elphaba. “That’s the real power of art, I think. Not to chide but to provoke challenge. Otherwise why bother?

It never is the who, is it? It's always the why." -Elphaba

You'll be all right,' Elphaba said, 'now you're a seasoned traveler. This is just the return leg of a voyage you already know.' She put her face against Glinda's and kissed her. 'Hold out, if you can,' she murmured, and kissed her again. 'Hold out, my sweet.

Come what may and hell to pay.

Elphaba’s already come back. I saw her last week on the stairs.

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!

Fiyero: "Why is it that every time I see you, you're causing some sort of commotion?" Elphaba: "I don't cause commotions. I am one." Fiyero: "That's for sure." Elphaba: "Oh! So you think I should just keep my mouth shut! Is that what you're saying?" Fiyero: "No, I'm ..." Elphaba: "Do you think I want to be this way? Do you think I want to care this much? Don't you know how much easier my life would be if I didn't?" Fiyero: "Do you ever let anyone else talk?" Elphaba: "Oh, sorry ... But can I just say one more thing? You could have just walked away back there." Fiyero: "So?" Elphaba: "So, no matter how shallow and self-absorbed you pretend to be ..." Fiyero: "Excuse me, there's no pretense here. I happen to be genuinely self-absorbed and deeply shallow." Elphaba: "No, you're not. Or you wouldn't be so unhappy.

Surely there is the handful of nursery marchen that start, ‘Once in the middle of a forest lived an old witch’ or ‘The devil was out walking one day and met a child,’ " Said Oatsie, who was showing that she had some education as well as grit. "To the grim poor there need be no pour quoi tale about where evil arises; it always is. 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 the devil? It is at the very least a question of definitions.

He is a boy, just as boys are. A little dull, maybe, but he hasn't had the advantages we've had.' 'Which are?' prompted Glinda. 'Even for a short time,' said Elphaba, 'we had a mother. Giddy, alcoholic, imaginative, uncertain, desperate, brave, stubborn, supportive woman. We had her. Melena.

guess, but I figured that was just a coincidence. I mean, Glinda and Elphaba we’re not.” She leaned forward, her eyes sparkling. “But I could totally get my Glinda on if you think it’ll get us out of here faster.” Not in the mood for one of her Wicked sing-alongs, I shot my best friend a dirty look as

Was Shell there, wondered Liir, knuckles on some marble windowsill, Lord High Apostle Muscle himself, Shell Go-to-hell Thropp, First Spear, Emperor of Oz, Personal Shell of the Unnamed God? Did he lean forward and squint at the holy ghost of his remonstrating sister, and rub his eyes? Six thousand strong, they cried in unison, hoping that the echo of their message would be heard in the darkest, most cloistered cell in Southstairs as well as the highest office in the Palace of the Emperor. “Elphaba lives! Elphaba lives! Elphaba lives!

ELPHABA I'm limited: Just look at me - I'm limited And just look at you - You can do all I couldn't do, Glinda So now it's up to you (spoken) For both of us (sung) Now it's up to you: GLINDA I've heard it said That people come into our lives for a reason Bringing something we must learn And we are led To those who help us most to grow If we let them And we help them in return Well, I don't know if I believe that's true But I know I'm who I am today Because I knew you: Like a comet pulled from orbit As it passes a sun Like a stream that meets a boulder Halfway through the wood Who can say if I've been changed for the better? But because I knew you I have been changed for good ELPHABA It well may be That we will never meet again In this lifetime So let me say before we part So much of me Is made of what I learned from you You'll be with me Like a handprint on my heart And now whatever way our stories end I know you have re-written mine By being my friend: Like a ship blown from its mooring By a wind off the sea Like a seed dropped by a skybird In a distant wood Who can say if I've been changed for the better? But because I knew you: GLINDA Because I knew you: BOTHI have been changed for good ELPHABA And just to clear the air I ask forgiveness For the things I've done you blame me for GLINDA But then, I guess we know There's blame to share BOTH And none of it seems to matter anymore GLINDA ELPHABA Like a comet pulled Like a ship blown From orbit as it Off it's mooring Passes a sun, like By a wind off the A stream that meets Sea, like a seed A boulder, half-way Dropped by a Through the wood Bird in the wood BOTH Who can say if I've been changed for the better? I do believe I have been changed for the better? GLINDA And because I knew you: ELPHABA Because I knew you: BOTH Because I knew you: I have been changed for good.

Well, Doctor Dillamond seemed to think they were in questionable taste, given the Banns on Animals Mobility." "Doctor Dillamond, alas," said Madame Morrible, "is a doctor. He is not a poet. He is also a God, and I might ask you girls if we have ever had a great Goat sonneteer or balladeer? Alas, dear Miss Elphaba, Doctor Dillamond doesn't understand the poetic convention of irony. Would you like to define irony for the class, please?" "I don't believe I can, Madame." "Irony, some say, is the art of juxtaposing incongruous parts. One needs a knowing distance. Irony presupposes detachment, which, alas, in the case of Animal Rights, we may forgive Doctor Dillamond for being without." "So that phrase that he objected to - Animals should be seen and not heard - that was ironic?" continued Elphaba, studying her papers and not looking at Madame Morrible. Galinda and her classmates were enthralled, for it was clear that each of the females at opposite ends of the room would have enjoyed seeing the other crumble in a sudden attack of the spleen. "One could consider it in an ironic mode if one chose," said Madame Morrible. "How do you choose?" said Elphaba. "How impertinent!" said Madame Morrible. "Well, but I don't mean impertinence. I'm trying to learn. If you - if anyone - thought that statement was true, then it isn't in conflict with the boring bossy bit that preceded it. It's just argument and conclusion, and I don't see the irony." "You don't see much, Miss Elphaba," said Madame Morrible. "You must learn to put yourself in the shoes of someone wiser than you are, and look from that angle. To be stuck in ignorance, to be circumscribed by the walls of one's own modest acumen, well, it is very sad in one so young and bright." She spit out the last word, and it seemed to Galinda, somehow, a low comment on Elphaba's skin color, which today was indeed lustrous with the effort of public speaking. "But I was trying to put myself in the shoes of Doctor Dillamond," said Elphaba, almost whining, but not giving up. "In the case of poetic interpretation, I venture to suggest, it may indeed be true. Animal should not be heard," snapped Madame Morrible. "Do you mean that ironically?" said Elphaba, but she sat down with her hands over her face and did not look up again for the rest of the session.

The witch shrieked in panic, in disbelief. That even now the world should twist so, offending her once again: Elphaba, who had endured Sarima's refusal to forgive, now begged by a gibbering child for the same mercy always denied her? How could you give such a thing out of your own hollowness?

The rafiqi advised caution, advised return to the camp; but childhood in the Quadling badlands had made Elphaba not only bold, but curious. There were more ways to live than the ones given by one's superiors.

...The lore supposes there should be conflict, hostility, battle, but I wonder, in contact with spirits, if what the boy needs is a good helping of cold anger." "Cold anger?" "Oh yes, don't you know the distinction? Tribal mothers always tell their children that there are two kinds of anger: hot and cold. Boys and girls experience both, but as they grow up the angers separate according to the sex. Boys need hot anger to survive. They need the 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, or pride. Maybe of sex, too." "Yes, I know," said Elphaba, remembering. Sarima blushed and looked unhappy, and continued. "And girls need cold anger. They need the cold simmer, the ceaseless grudge, the talent to avoid forgiveness, the sidestepping of compromise. They need to know when they say something that they will never back down, ever, ever. It's the compensation for a more limited scope in the world. 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.

Most effectively, and gruesomely, the skull of an elephant hung on a rafter, and a bouquet of dried creamy pink roses emerged from the central hole in the hull of its cranium - like the exploding brains of a dying animal, he couldn't help thinking; remembering Elphaba's youthful concerns. Or maybe an homage to the putative magical talents of elephants?

I'm gone, dearie, I'm magicked away in a puff of smoke. Forget it. And you know, that'll be good for Nessarose. She'll be a sort of local queen out there in Nest Hardings." "She apparently did a course in sorcery, did you know? In Shiz?" "No I didn't. Well, bully for her. If she ever comes down off that plinth - the one that has words written on the it along the edges in gold, reading MOST SUPERIOR IN MORAL RECTITUDE - if she ever allows herself to be the bitch she really is, she'll be the Bitch of the East. Nanny and the devoted staff at Colwen Grounds will prop her up." "I thought you were fond of her!" "Don't you know affection when you see it?" scoffed Elphaba. "I love Nessie. She's a pain in the neck, she's intolerably righteous, she's a nasty piece of work. I'm devoted to her." "She'll be the Eminent Thropp." "Better she than I," said Elphaba dryly. "For one thing she has great taste in shoes.

I think that's shameful, even if it's just a story, to propose an afterlife for evil," said Elphaba. "Any afterlife notion is a manipulation and a sop. It's shameful the way the unionists and the pagans both keep talking up hell for intimidation and the airy Other Land for reward." "Don't," Sarima said. "For one thing, that's where Fiyero is waiting for me. And you know it." Elphaba's jaw dropped. When she least expected it, Sarima always seemed ready to rush in with a surprise attack. "In the afterlife?" said Elphie. "Oh, what you do take against," said Sarima. "I pity the community of the afterlife when they're asked to welcome you in. What a sour apple you always are.

As he ruminated, his beard tickled Elphaba's neck, and she snapped the wings off her wooden sparrow. She sucked on it like a whistle. Twisting away from him, she ran to a glass lens hanging from the projecting eave, and swatted at it. "Don't you break that!" said her father. "She cannot break that." The traveler, the Quadling, came from the sink where he had been washing up. "She just turned her toy into a crippled," Frex said, pointing at the ruined birdling. "She is herself pleased at the half things," Turtle Heart said. "I think. The little girl to play with the broken pieces better.

Horrors," said Elphaba. It was her first word, and it was greeted with silence. Even the moon, the lambent bowl among the trees, seemed to pause. "Horrors?" Elphaba said again, looking around. Though her mouth was serious, her eyes glowed; she had realized her own accomplishment. She was nearly two years old. The big sharp teeth in her mouth could not keep her words locked inside anymore. "Horrors," she tried in a whisper. "Horrors.

Quadlings consider to fight," said Turtle Heart. "Because they think this is only the start. When the builders to test the soil and to sift water, they to learn of things Quadlings are smart for ever, but Quadlings to keep still." "Things you know?" "Turtle Heart to speak of rubies," he said with a great sigh. "Rubies under the water. Red as pigeon blood. Engineers to say: Red corundum in bands of crystalline limestone under swamp. Quadlings to say: the blood of Oz." "Like the red glass you make?" said Melena. "Ruby glass to come by adding gold chloride," said Turtle Heart. "But Quadling Country to sit atop real deposits of real rubies. And the news is sure to go to the Emerald City with the builders. What to follow is horror upon horror." "How do you know?" snapped Melena. "To look in glass," said Turtle Heart, pointing to the roundel he had made as a toy for Elphaba, "is to see the future, in blood and rubies." "I don't believe in seeing the future. That smacks of the pleasure faith," said Flex fiercely. "The fatalism of the Time Dragon. Pfaah. No, the Unnamed God has an unnamed history for us, and prophecy is merely guesswork and fear." "Fear and guesswork is enough to make Turtle Heart to leave Quadling Country, then," said the Quadling glassblower without apology. "Quadlings do not to call their religion a pleasure faith, but they to listen to signs and to watch for messages. As the water to run red with rubies it will run with the blood of Quadlings.

Alas! For impropriety, The guillotine of piety. To remedy society Indulge not to satiety In mirth and shameless gaiety. Choose sobering sobriety. Behave as if the deity Approaches in its mystery, And greet it with sonority. Let your especial history Be built upon sorority Whose Virtues do examplify, And Social Good thus multiply. Animals should be seen and not heard. Again, there was mumbling, but it was of a different nature now, a meaner key. Doctor Dillamond harrumphed and beat a cloven hoof against the floor, and was heard to say, "Well that's not poetry, that's propaganda, and it's not even good propaganda at that." Elphaba sidled over to Galinda's side with her chair under her arm, and plunked it down between Galinda and Shenshen. She put her bony behind on its slatted seat and leaned to Galinda and asked, "What do you make of this?" It was the first time Galinda had ever been addressed by Elphaba in public. Mortification bloomed. "I don't know," she said faintly, looking in the other direction. "It's cleverness, isn't it?" said Elphaba. "I mean that last line, you couldn't tell by that fancy accent whether it was meant to be Animals or animals. No wonder Dillamond's furious.

Well," said Madame Morrible in a carrying tone, "one expects poetry, if it is Poetry, to offend. It is the Right of Art." "I think she's bonders," said Elphaba.

Galinda was still trying to extricate herself from the embarrassing company of Elphaba, who kept on about the Quells and what they meant, and if they were any good. "How do I know, how should I know, we're first-year girls, remember?" said Galinda, yearning to swish over to where Pfannee, Milla, and Shenshen were squeezing lemons into teacups of a few edgy boys. "Well, your opinion is as good as hers, I think," said Elphaba. "That's the real power of art, I think. Not to chide but to provide a challenge. Otherwise, why bother?

And when the good Doctor is finished ferreting out the difference between Animals and people, I will propose he apply the same arguments to the differences between the sexes," said Elphaba.

Elphaba had an okay voice. He saw the imaginary place she conjured up, a land where injustice and common cruelty and despotic rule and the beggaring fist of drought didn't work together to hold everyone by the neck. No he wasn't giving her credit: Elphaba had a good voice. It was controlled and feeling and not histrionic. He listened through to the end, and the song faded into the hush of a respectful pub. Later, he thought: 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. "You next, you promised," cried Elphaba, pointing at Fiyero, but nobody would sing again, because she had done so well. Nessarose nodded to Nanny to wipe a tear from the corner of her eye. "Elphaba says she's not religious but see how feelingly she sings of the afterlife," said Nessarose, and for once no one was inclined to argue.

Well, I might be all or none of the things you say," said Boq staunchly, "but you will learn that I am persistent. I will not let you say no to our friendship, Galinda. It means too much to me." "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?

Don't forget Shiz University was originally a unionist monastery," said Elphaba, "so despite the anything-goes attitude among the educated elite, there are still bedrocks of unionist bias." "But I'm a unionist," said Boq, "and I don't see the conflict. The Unnamed God is accommodating to many ranges of being, not just human. Are you talking about a subtle bias against Animals, interwoven into early unionist tracts, and still in operation today?" "That's certainly what Doctor Dillamond thinks. And he's a unionist himself. Explain that paradox and I'd be glad to convert. I admire the Got intensely. But the real interest of it to me is the political slant. If he can isolate some bit of the biological architecture to prove that there isn't any difference, deep down, in the invisible pockets of human and Animal flesh - that there's no difference between us - or even among us, if you take in animal flesh too - well, you see the implications." "No," said Boq, "I don't think I do." "How can the Banns on Animal Mobility be upheld if Doctor Dillamond can prove, scientifically, that there isn't any inherent difference between humans and Animals?" "Oh, now that's a blueprint for an impossibly rosy future," said Boq. "Think about it," said Elphaba. "Think, Boq. On what grounds could the Wizard possibly continue to publish those Banns?" "How could he be persuaded not to? The Wizard has dissolved the Hall of Approval indefinitely. I don't believe, Elphie, that the Wizard is open to entertaining arguments, even by as august an Animal as Doctor Dillamond." "But of course he must be. He's a man in power, it's his job to consider changes in knowledge. When Doctor Dillamond has his proof, he'll write to the Wizard and begin to lobby for change. No doubt he'll do his best to let Animals the over know what he's intending, too. He isn't a fool.

But what of the pleasure faith?" said Crope. "Can a witch or a sorcerer take an animal and, though a spell, create an Animal?" "Well, that's the thing I've been looking into," said Elphaba. "The pleasure faithers - the pfaithers - say that if anything - Lurline or the Unnamed God - could have done it once, magic could do it again. They even hint that the original distinction between Animals and animals was a Kumbric Witch spell, so strong and enduring it has never worn off. This is dangerous propaganda, malice incarnate. No one knows if there is such a thing as a Kumbric Witch, let alone if there ever was. Myself, I think it's a part of the Lurlinist cycle that's gotten detached and developed independently. Arrant nonsense. We have no proof that magic is so strong -" "We have no proof that god is so strong," interrupted Tibbett. "Which strikes me as being as good an argument against god as it is against magic," said Elphaba, "but never mind that. The point is, if it is an enduring Kumbric spell, centuries old, it may be reversible. Or it may be perceived to be reversible, which is just as bad. In the interim, while sorcerers are at work experimenting with charms and spells, the Animals lose their rights, one by one. Just slowly enough so that it's hard to see as a coherent political campaign. It's a dicey scenario, and one that Doctor Dillamond hasn't figured out -

... Meanwhile the Wizard's men began draining the badlands to get at the ruby deposits. It never worked, of course. They managed to chase the Qadlings out and kill them, round them up in settlement camps for their own protection and starve them. They despoiled the badlands, raked up the rubies, and left. My father went barmy over it. There never were enough rubies to make it worth the effort; we still have canal system to run that legendary water from the Vinkus all the way cross-country to Munchkinland. And the drought, after a few promising reprieves, continues unabated. The Animals are recalled to the lands of their ancestors, a ploy to give the farmers a sense of control over something anyway. It's a systematic marginalizing of populations, Glinda, that's what the Wizard's all about." "We were talking about your childhood," said Glinda. "Well that's it, that's all part of it. You can't divorce your particulars from politics," said Elphaba.

Horrors,” said Elphaba. It was her first word,

They managed to chase the Quadlings out and kill them, round them up in settlement camps for their own protection and starve them. They despoiled the badlands, raked up the rubies, and left. My father went barmy over it. There never were enough rubies to make it worth the effort; we still have no canal system to run that legendary water from the Vinkus all the way cross-country to Munchkinland. And the drought, after a few promising reprieves, continues unabated. The Animals are recalled to the lands of their ancestors, a ploy to give the farmers a sense of control over something anyway. It’s a systematic marginalizing of populations, Glinda, that’s what the Wizard’s all about.” “We were talking about your childhood,” said Glinda. “Well that’s it, that’s all part of it. You can’t divorce your particulars from politics,” Elphaba said. “You want to know what we ate? How we played?

You will not repeat what you hear in this room,” she said. “You will not want to, you will not choose to, and you will not be able to. I am wrapping each one of you in a binding cocoon as regards this very sensitive material. No”—she held up a hand at Elphaba’s protest—“no you have no right to object. The deed is already done and you must listen and be open to what I say.” Glinda tried to examine herself to see if she felt wrapped, or bound, or spell-chilled. But she only felt frightened and young, which may be close to the same thing.

Glinda fluffed the bedraggled feathers in her traveling hat for the eightieth time, and sighed, “Now you’re the one who says what should be said.” Elphaba nodded. To Glinda she looked tired, terrified, but strong, as if her form were knit with iron and whiskey instead of bones and blood.

Elphaba had already unpacked her few belongings. They hung raglike on hooks in the cupboard: thin, shapeless shifts, shamed into a corner by the fulsome hoops and starched bustles and padded shoulders and cushioned elbows of Galinda’s wardrobe.

But they believe in evil still,” said Galinda with a yawn. “Isn’t that funny, that deity is passé but the attributes and implications of deity linger—” “You are thinking!” Elphaba cried. Galinda raised herself to her elbows at the enthusiasm in her roomie’s voice. “I am about to sleep, because this is profoundly boring to me,” Galinda said, but Elphaba was grinning from ear to ear.

Elphaba looked like something between an animal and an Animal, like something more than life but not quite Life. There was an expectancy but no intuition, was that it?—like a child who has never remembered having a dream being told to have sweet dreams. You’d almost call it unrefined, but not in a social sense—more in a sense of nature not having done its full job with Elphaba, not quite having managed to make her enough like herself.

Elphaba the girl does not know how to see her father as a broken man. All she knows is that he passes his brokenness onto her. Daily his habits of loathing and self-loathing cripple her. Daily she loves him back because she knows no other way.

Horrors,” said Elphaba. It was her first word, and it was greeted with silence. Even the moon, a lambent bowl among the trees, seemed to pause.

It seemed as if Elphaba were coming up for air from a still, isolated pool. "While I don't read the same thing every day, you know, tonight I am reading some of the speeches of the early unionist fathers." "Why ever would anyone want to do that?" "I don't know. I don't even know if I want to read them. I'm just reading them." "But why? Miss Elphaba the Delirious, why, why?" Elphaba looked up at Galinda and smiled. "Elphaba the Delirious. I like it.

My father taught me a lot," Elphaba said slowly. "He was very well educated indeed. He taught me to read and write and think, and more. But not enough. I just think, like our teachers here, that if ministers are effective, they're good at asking questions to get you to think. I don't think they're supposed to have the answers. Not necessarily.

Well, whatever did those old brutes think about evil, then?" "It's hard to say exactly. they seemed to be obsessed with locating it somewhere. I mean, an evil spring in the mountains, an evil smoke, evil blood in the veins going from parent to child. They were sort of like the early explorers of Oz, except the maps they made were of invisible stuff, pretty inconsistent one with the other." "And where is evil located?" Galinda asked, flopping onto her bed and closing her eyes. "Well, they didn't agree, did they? Or else what would they have to write sermons arguing about? 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 splits apart and multiples. So every evil is a sign of the absence of deity." "Well I wouldn't know an evil thing if it fell on me," said Galinda. "The early unionists, who were a lot more Lurlinist than unionists are today, argued that some invisible pocket of corruption was floating around the neighborhood, a direct descendent of the pain the world felt with Lurline left. Like a patch of cold air on a warm still night. A perfectly agreeable soul might march through it and become infected, and then go and kill a neighbor. But then was it your fault if you walked through a patch of badness? If you couldn't see it? There wasn't ever any council of unionists that decided it one way or the other, and nowadays so many people don't even believe in Lurline." "But they believe in evil still," said Galinda with a yawn. "Isn't that funny, that deity is passe but the attributes and implications of deity linger -" "You are thinking!" Elphaba cried. Galinda raised herself to her elbows at the enthusiasm in her roomie's voice. "I am about to sleep, because this is profoundly boring to me," Galinda said, but Elphaba was grinning from ear to ear.

But look at that beautiful angel there! Do you really mean to say you don't believe in the Other Land? In an afterlife?' 'Just what we need.' Elphaba snorted as she picked up the tome. 'A post Vale-of-Tears Vale-of-Tears'.

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-

I didn't think friendship required this much," snapped Elphaba to Boq, "I was better off before.

Surtout Fieyero voulait marcher dans les rues de la Cité d'Emeraude avec Elphaba - il n'existait aucun endroit plus beau pour être amoureux, en particulier au crépuscule quand les boutiques allumaient leurs lumières dorées sur le ciel vespéral mauve bleuté. Fieyro n'avait jamais été amoureux avant, il s'en rendait compte à présent. Il se sentait plein de crainte et d'humilité. Quand leur séparation forcée durait quatre ou cinq jours, il ne le supportait pas.

What is there that makes my life worth preserving? “I love you,” said Elphaba. “So that’s that then, and that’s it,” he answered her, and himself. “And I love you. So I promise to be careful.” Careful of us both, he thought. So he stalked her again. Love makes hunters of us all.

Boq sat down, and shook his head, as if bewildered by the apparition of Elphaba.

But he wished he had a faith now, some scrap of something: for Elphaba was dead, and to act as if the world were no more changed than if some branch of a tree had snapped off—well, it didn’t seem right.

I’ve never believed in child saviors,” Elphaba said. “As far as I’m concerned, children are the ones who need saving.

I was, the first time I came here. It was with Elphaba. We were older than you are now, but only by a few years. And in many ways we were more naive.