Wicked Witch Quotes

We've searched our database for all the quotes and captions related to Wicked Witch. Here they are! All 100 of them:

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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.
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Gregory Maguire (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (The Wicked Years, #1))
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Remember this: Nothing is written in the stars. Not these stars, nor any others. No one controls your destiny.
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Gregory Maguire (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West)
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People couldn't become truly holy, he said, unless they also had the opportunity to be definitively wicked.
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Terry Pratchett (Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch)
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Where I'm from, we believe in all sorts of things that aren't true... we call it history.
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Gregory Maguire (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (The Wicked Years, #1))
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Happy endings are still endings.
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Gregory Maguire (Son of a Witch (The Wicked Years, #2))
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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?
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Gregory Maguire (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (The Wicked Years, #1))
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Asleep, he looks like a bleeding Prince Charming chained in the dungeon. When I was little, I always thought I’d be Cinderella, but I guess this makes me the wicked witch. But then again, Cinderella didn’t live in a post-apocalyptic world invaded by avenging angels.
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Susan Ee (Angelfall (Penryn & the End of Days, #1))
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So he stalked her again. Love makes hunters of us all.
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Gregory Maguire (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (The Wicked Years, #1))
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Think of every fairy-tale villainess you've ever heard of. Think of the wicked witches, the evil queens, the mad enchantresses. Think of the alluring sirens, the hungry ogresses, the savage she-beasts. Think of them and remember that somewhere, sometime, they've all been real. Mab gave them lessons.
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Jim Butcher (Small Favor (The Dresden Files, #10))
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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.
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Gregory Maguire (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (The Wicked Years, #1))
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There was much to hate in this world and too much to love.
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Gregory Maguire (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (The Wicked Years, #1))
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You confuse not speaking with not listening.
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Gregory Maguire (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (The Wicked Years, #1))
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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.
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Gregory Maguire (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (The Wicked Years, #1))
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The body apologizes to the soul for its errors, and the soul asks forgiveness for squatting in the body without invitation.
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Gregory Maguire (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (The Wicked Years, #1))
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Because no retreat from the world can mask what is in your face.
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Gregory Maguire (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (The Wicked Years, #1))
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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.
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Gregory Maguire (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (The Wicked Years, #1))
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Reading is the perfect escape from whatever ails you.
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Jessica Spotswood (Born Wicked (The Cahill Witch Chronicles, #1))
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We're like the wicked witch. We promise gingerbread, then eat the little brats alive.
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Orson Scott Card (Ender’s Game (Ender's Saga, #1))
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No one controls your destiny. Even at the very worst - there is always choice.
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Gregory Maguire (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (The Wicked Years, #1))
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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!
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Gregory Maguire (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (The Wicked Years, #1))
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The true secret in being a hero lies in knowing the order of things. The swineherd cannot already be wed to the princess when he embarks on his adventures, nor can the boy knock on the witch's door when she is already away on vacation. The wicked uncle cannot be found out and foiled before he does something wicked. Things must happen when it is time for them to happen. Quests may not simply be abandoned; prophecies may not be left to rot like unpicked fruit; unicorns may go unrescued for a very long time, but not forever. The happy ending cannot come in the middle of the story.
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Peter S. Beagle (The Last Unicorn (The Last Unicorn, #1))
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The wickedness of men is that their power breeds stupidity and blindness.
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Gregory Maguire (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (The Wicked Years, #1))
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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.
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Gregory Maguire (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (The Wicked Years, #1))
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That was such a wonderful time, even in its strangeness and sadness-and life isn't the same now. It's wonderful, but it isn't the same.
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Gregory Maguire (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (The Wicked Years, #1))
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I shall pray for your soul,' promised Nessarose. I shall wait for your shoes,' Elphie answered.
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Gregory Maguire (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (The Wicked Years, #1))
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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
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Gregory Maguire (Son of a Witch (The Wicked Years, #2))
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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?
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Chloe Neill (Hard Bitten (Chicagoland Vampires, #4))
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No matter how safe and beautiful it is, a cage is still a cage.
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Jessica Spotswood (Born Wicked (The Cahill Witch Chronicles, #1))
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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.
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Gregory Maguire (Son of a Witch (The Wicked Years, #2))
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In summer moonlight, she was dangerously, inebriatingly magnified.
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Gregory Maguire (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (The Wicked Years, #1))
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What's the point of a book you don't enjoy?
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Jessica Spotswood (Born Wicked (The Cahill Witch Chronicles, #1))
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Wicked are the ways of womenβ€”and especially a witch. Their guile knows no bounds.
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Shelby Mahurin (Serpent & Dove (Serpent & Dove, #1))
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They moved together, blue diamonds on a green field.
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Gregory Maguire (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West)
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Animals are born who they are, accept it, and that is that. They live with greater peace than people do.
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Gregory Maguire (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (The Wicked Years, #1))
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There were more ways to live than the ones given by one's superiors
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Gregory Maguire (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (The Wicked Years, #1))
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There are victors and victims. Decide who you want to be. Or the choice will be made for you, witch. And I doubt you’ll like it.” I threw my head back and groaned. β€œIt’s a game of scopa, not a battle between life and death. Are you always this dramatic?
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Kerri Maniscalco (Kingdom of the Wicked (Kingdom of the Wicked, #1))
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I believe that our lives, just like fairy tales - the stories that have been written by us humans, through our own experiences of living - will always have a Hero and a Heroine, a Fairy Godmother and a Wicked Witch.
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Lucinda Riley (The Girl on the Cliff)
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The stories never said why she was wicked. It was enough to be an old woman, enough to be all alone, enough to look strange because you have no teeth. It was enough to be called a witch. If it came to that, the book never gave you the evidence of anything. It talked about "a handsome prince"... was he really, or was it just because he was a prince that people called handsome? As for "a girl who was as beautiful as the day was long"... well, which day? In midwinter it hardly ever got light! The stories don't want you to think, they just wanted you to believe what you were told...
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Terry Pratchett (The Wee Free Men (Discworld, #30; Tiffany Aching, #1))
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Always the bridesmaid , never the bride." Always the godfather, never the god".
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Gregory Maguire (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (The Wicked Years, #1))
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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.
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Gregory Maguire (Son of a Witch (The Wicked Years, #2))
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You know I take the Knight of Courage as my patron. There is courage, I think, in open-mindedness, and thinking for oneself. If you are a witch, then perhaps witches are not so wicked after all.
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Samantha Shannon (The Priory of the Orange Tree (The Roots of Chaos, #1))
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It's unbecoming," she agreed. "A perfect word for my new life. Unbecoming. I who have always been unbecoming am becoming un.
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Gregory Maguire (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (The Wicked Years, #1))
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The answer of course, is that the clock isn't meant to measure earthly time, but the time of the soul. Redemption and condemnation time. For the soul, each instant is always a minute short of judgment.
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Gregory Maguire (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (The Wicked Years, #1))
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A lot of the stories were highly suspicious, in her opinion. There was the one that ended when the two good children pushed the wicked witch into her own oven...Stories like this stopped people thinking properly, she was sure. She'd read that one and thought, Excuse me? No one has an oven big enough to get a whole person in, and what made the children think they could just walk around eating people's houses in any case? And why does some boy too stupid to know a cow is worth a lot more than five beans have the right to murder a giant and steal all his gold? Not to mention commit an act of ecological vandalism? And some girl who can't tell the difference between a wolf and her grandmother must either have been as dense as teak or come from an extremely ugly family.
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Terry Pratchett
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The world unwraps itself to you, again and again as soon as you are ready to see it anew.
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Gregory Maguire (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (The Wicked Years, #1))
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The universe has yet to take my wishes under consideration.
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Jessica Spotswood (Born Wicked (The Cahill Witch Chronicles, #1))
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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.
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Gregory Maguire (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (The Wicked Years, #1))
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Going so soon? I wouldn't hear of it. Why my little party's just beginning. ~ Wicked Witch of the West Wizard of Oz
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Noel Langley (The Wizard of Oz Screenplay)
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Fuckhead: The name’s MariKETA. Go to hell, The WITCH, doing a creepy spell somewhere right now.
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Kresley Cole (Wicked Deeds on a Winter's Night (Immortals After Dark, #3))
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Nothing to do but admit thatβ€”obnoxious smirk or notβ€”this boy is sexy af. A little wicked, a lot wild, and all dangerous.
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Tracy Wolff (Crave (Crave, #1))
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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 forgiveness, not to Liir. She started to say 'a soldier,' to make fun of his mooning affections over the guys in uniform. But realizing even as she said it that he would be hurt, she caught herself halfway, and in the end what came out of her mouth surprised them both. She said, 'A soul-' He blinked at her.
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Gregory Maguire (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West)
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We’re the wicked witch. We promise gingerbread, but we eat the little bastards alive.
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Orson Scott Card (Ender’s Game (Ender's Saga, #1))
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She, too, is one of Regin’s friends. They’re poker buddies, sisters of the Wii, and Mari is a vaunted member of the karaoke contingent. Regin has long acted as the witches’ designated driver.” β€œBFF?” Lachlain asked, brows drawn. β€œSisters of the what?” Emma supplied, β€œBest friend forever and a video game.” Lachlain muttered to Emma, β€œYour relatives are just no’ right.
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Kresley Cole (Wicked Deeds on a Winter's Night (Immortals After Dark, #3))
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When I was little, I always thought I’d be Cinderella, but I guess this makes me the wicked witch.
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Susan Ee (Angelfall (Penryn & the End of Days, #1))
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Galinda didn't often stop to consider whether she believed in what she said or not; the whole point of conversations was flow.
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Gregory Maguire (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West)
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Whatever you do, you must never speak to the Wicked. If you see them, hide. Once you’ve caught a demon prince’s attention, he’ll stop at nothing to claim you.
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Kerri Maniscalco (Kingdom of the Wicked (Kingdom of the Wicked, #1))
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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-alas, or perhaps thank mercy-no telling. She was dead, dead, and gone, and all that was left of her was the carapace of her reputation for malice.
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Gregory Maguire (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (The Wicked Years, #1))
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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
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Gregory Maguire (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (The Wicked Years, #1))
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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.
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Gregory Maguire (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (The Wicked Years, #1))
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Witches aren’t like that. We live in harmony with the great cycles of Nature, and do no harm to anyone, and it’s wicked of them to say we don’t. We ought to fill their bones with hot lead.
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Terry Pratchett (Wyrd Sisters (Discworld, #6; Witches, #2))
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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.
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Gregory Maguire (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (The Wicked Years, #1))
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Evil is an act, not an appetite. How many haven't wanted to slash the throat of some boor across the dining room table? Present company excepted of course. Everyone has the appetite. If you give in to it, it, that act is evil. The appetite is normal.
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Gregory Maguire (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (The Wicked Years, #1))
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I am wicked in many ways.
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Jessica Spotswood (Born Wicked (The Cahill Witch Chronicles, #1))
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We only have babies when we're young enough not to know how grim life turns out.
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Gregory Maguire (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (The Wicked Years, #1))
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She is no longer I, she is too long ago, she is only she...
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Gregory Maguire (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West)
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How poetic you are," she said. "I've a notion that poetry is the highest form of self-deception.
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Gregory Maguire (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (The Wicked Years, #1))
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I’m not Glinda. I’m Glamora, her twin sister. She’s the Good witch; I’m the Wicked one. Of course, she’s also the one who’s turned Oz into the hellhole it is now, so it’s really all relative.
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Danielle Paige (Dorothy Must Die (Dorothy Must Die, #1))
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The more civilized we become, the more horrendous our entertainments.
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Gregory Maguire (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (The Wicked Years, #1))
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And all the stories had, somewhere, the witch. The wicked old witch. And Tiffany had thought: Where's the evidence?
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Terry Pratchett (The Wee Free Men (Discworld, #30; Tiffany Aching, #1))
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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-
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Gregory Maguire (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (The Wicked Years, #1))
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Once upon a time there was a wicked witch and her name was Lilith Eve Hagar Jezebel Delilah Pandora Jahi Tamar and there was a wicked witch and she was also called goddess and her name was Kali Fatima Artemis Hera Isis Mary Ishtar and there was a wicked witch and she was also called queen and her name was Bathsheba Vashti Cleopatra Helen Salome Elizabeth Clytemnestra Medea and there was a wicked witch and she was also called witch and her name was Joan Circe Morgan le Fay Tiamat Maria Leonza Medusa and they had this in common: that they were feared, hated, desired, and worshiped.
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Andrea Dworkin (Woman Hating)
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I learned failure early and mastered it.
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Gregory Maguire (Son of a Witch (The Wicked Years, #2))
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Yet who can say how our souls have been stamped by witnessing such a cruel drama? All souls are hostages to their human envelopes, but souls must decay and suffer at such indignity, don't you agree?
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Gregory Maguire (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (The Wicked Years, #1))
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It isn't whether you do it well or ill, it's that you do it all.
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Gregory Maguire (Son of a Witch (The Wicked Years, #2))
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B-T-W," Heather said. "What's with the death wish?" "What are you talking about?" "I'm talking about provoking the wicked witch of the west. You look old? Are you trying to get us both killed?" "She does look old. Or at least, older than she used to." "It doesn't matter! Two things you never comment on when it comes to girls: their age and their weight. That's male survival 101. Come on!
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Chelsea Fine (Avow (The Archers of Avalon, #3))
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When the times are a crucible, when the air is full of crisis, those who are the most themselves are the victims.
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Gregory Maguire (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (The Wicked Years, #1))
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Wrong takes an awful long time to be proven, in my experience.
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Gregory Maguire (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (The Wicked Years, #1))
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This is why you shouldn't fall in love, it blinds you. Love is wicked distraction.
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Gregory Maguire (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (The Wicked Years, #1))
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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.
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Gregory Maguire (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (The Wicked Years, #1))
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The moon rose, an opalescent goddess tipping light from her harsh maternal scimitar.
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Gregory Maguire (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (The Wicked Years, #1))
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I can feel you, even though I can't see you.
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Nancy Holder (Wicked: Witch & Curse (Wicked, #1-2))
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We don't get to choose who we love. Or stop loving them when they're difficult.
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Jessica Spotswood (Born Wicked (The Cahill Witch Chronicles, #1))
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The weakest ones are the wickedest cruel When the strongest ones in gentleness rule!
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Ana Claudia Antunes (The Witches Of Avignon)
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Wisdom is not the understanding of mystery. Wisdom is accepting that mystery is beyond understanding. That's what makes it mystery.
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Gregory Maguire (Son of a Witch (The Wicked Years, #2))
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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 look like? Well no one can ever tell, for as soon as you break the shell to see, the dragon is no longer in its shell. The real disaster of this inquiry is that it is the nature of evil to be secret.
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Gregory Maguire (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (The Wicked Years, #1))
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Starlight and comet tails burned the tips of endless grass below into hammered silver. Like thousands of tapers in the chapel, just blown out but still glowing. If one could drown in the grass...it might be the best way to die.
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Gregory Maguire (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West)
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Well, the family always was bright, and brightness, as you know, decays brilliantly.
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Gregory Maguire (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (The Wicked Years, #1))
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The truth isn't a thing of fact or reason. It is simply what everyone agrees on.
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Gregory Maguire (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (The Wicked Years, #1))
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Elphaba looked like something between an animal and an Animal, like something more than life but not quite Life.
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Gregory Maguire (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (The Wicked Years, #1))
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There are two kinds of anger: hot and cold. Boys and girls experience both, but as they grow up the anger separates according to the sex. Boys need hot anger to survive. They need 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, of pride. Maybe of sex too. 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 would 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.
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Gregory Maguire (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (The Wicked Years, #1))
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Tell me to mind my own business, tell me to go fuck myself, to piss, off, go on, say it, but don’t tell me nothing’s wrong.
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Gregory Maguire (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (The Wicked Years, #1))
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That is the idea -- that we should all be wicked if we did not hold to the Christian religion. It seems to me that the people who have held to it have been for the most part extremely wicked. You find this curious fact, that the more intense has been the religion of any period and the more profound has been the dogmatic belief, the greater has been the cruelty and the worse has been the state of affairs. In the so-called ages of faith, when men really did believe the Christian religion in all its completeness, there was the Inquisition, with all its tortures; there were millions of unfortunate women burned as witches; and there was every kind of cruelty practiced upon all sorts of people in the name of religion. You find as you look around the world that every single bit of progress in humane feeling, every improvement in the criminal law, every step toward the diminution of war, every step toward better treatment of the colored races, or every mitigation of slavery, every moral progress that there has been in the world, has been consistently opposed by the organized churches of the world. I say quite deliberately that the Christian religion, as organized in its churches, has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. You may think that I am going too far when I say that that is still so. I do not think that I am. Take one fact. You will bear with me if I mention it. It is not a pleasant fact, but the churches compel one to mention facts that are not pleasant. Supposing that in this world that we live in today an inexperienced girl is married to a syphilitic man; in that case the Catholic Church says, 'This is an indissoluble sacrament. You must endure celibacy or stay together. And if you stay together, you must not use birth control to prevent the birth of syphilitic children.' Nobody whose natural sympathies have not been warped by dogma, or whose moral nature was not absolutely dead to all sense of suffering, could maintain that it is right and proper that that state of things should continue. That is only an example. There are a great many ways in which, at the present moment, the church, by its insistence upon what it chooses to call morality, inflicts upon all sorts of people undeserved and unnecessary suffering. And of course, as we know, it is in its major part an opponent still of progress and improvement in all the ways that diminish suffering in the world, because it has chosen to label as morality a certain narrow set of rules of conduct which have nothing to do with human happiness; and when you say that this or that ought to be done because it would make for human happiness, they think that has nothing to do with the matter at all. 'What has human happiness to do with morals? The object of morals is not to make people happy.
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Bertrand Russell (Why I Am Not a Christian and Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects)
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Tell me the story, Pew. . . . It was a woman. You always say that. There's always a woman somewhere, child; a princess, a witch, a stepmother, a mermaid, a fairy godmother, or one as wicked as she is beautiful, or as beautiful as she is good. Is that the complete list? Then there is the woman you love. Who's she? That's another story.
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Jeanette Winterson
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"Heard you choking, are you all right?" "You're beautiful, a good kisser, this is our first date, my bed is in the room, I'm nervous as all heck and I just thought I was going to die choking after spitting out gum so no, I'm not all right." Yes, that's what I blurted, word for word. Chace stared at me. I stared back both wondering if I could will myself to melt like the Wicked Witch in The Wizard of Oz and if that was what Laurie meant by honesty or if it was a tad over the top. (...) Then his tongue was in my mouth. (...) "Still nervous?" "No," I whispered. "Good," he muttered.
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Kristen Ashley (Breathe (Colorado Mountain, #4))
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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.
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Gregory Maguire (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West)
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Once upon a time... a long time ago... things that happened once perhaps but have been talked about for so long that nobody really knows. And underneath all the bits that people have added the magic swords and lamps they're all about one thing - the good hero fighting the giant or the witch or the wicked uncle. Good against bad. Good against evil.
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Susan Cooper (Over Sea, Under Stone (The Dark is Rising, #1))
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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.
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Gregory Maguire (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (The Wicked Years, #1))
β€œ
He holds my gaze, and the look in his eyes is a love letter in itself. When he speaks, his voice is rough. "Will you marry me, Cate?" I go still, the question hanging in the air. I have never felt more accepted 'for the girl I am, not the girl I want to be' never more loved and respected than I am in this moment. It's a choice, and it's mine to make. "Yes," I breathe. Finn slides the simple gold band onto my ring finger. I tilt it, and the ruby sparkles, catching the sunlight. He leans down and brushes his lips against mine, sealing the promise. 'I can't wait to make you my wife.' 'Cate Belastra.' I try it out and despite the solemnity of the moment, despite knowing what this will cost him, I can't help smiling.
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Jessica Spotswood (Born Wicked (The Cahill Witch Chronicles, #1))
β€œ
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? β€œI love you,” said Elphaba. β€œSo that’s that then, and that’s it,” he answered her and himself. β€œAnd I love you. So I promise to be careful.
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Gregory Maguire (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (The Wicked Years, #1))
β€œ
There was a wicked ole witch once called Black Aliss. She was an unholy terror. There's never been one worse or more powerful. Until now. Because I could spit in her eye and steal her teeth, see. Because she didn't know Right from Wrong, so she got all twisted up, and that was the end of her. "The trouble is, you see, that if you do know Right from Wrong, you can't choose Wrong. You just can't do it and live. So.. if I was a bad witch I could make Mister Salzella's muscles turn against his bones and break them where he stood... if I was bad. I could do things inside his head, change the shape he thinks he is, and he'd be down on what had been his knees and begging to be turned into a frog... if I was bad. I could leave him with a mind like a scrambled egg, listening to colors and hearing smells...if I was bad. Oh yes." There was another sigh, deeper and more heartfelt. "But I can't do none of that stuff. That wouldn't be Right." She gave a deprecating little chuckle. And if Nanny Ogg had been listening, she would have resolved as follows: that no maddened cackle from Black Aliss of infamous memory, no evil little giggle from some crazed Vampyre whose morals were worse than his spelling, no side-splitting guffaw from the most inventive torturer, was quite so unnerving as a happy little chuckle from a Granny Weatherwax about to do what's best.
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Terry Pratchett (Maskerade (Discworld, #18; Witches, #5))