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“Staring at a world too horrible to comprehend, believing -- by dint of ignorance and innocence -- that beneath this unbearable contract of guilt and blame there is always an older contract that may bind and release in a more salutary way.”
Source: Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
“One never knows how the witch became wicked, or whether that was the right choice for her — is it ever the right choice? Does the devil ever struggle to be good again, or if so is he not a devil? It is the very least question of definitions.”
Source: Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
“Woe is the natural end of life, yet we go on having babies.No, said Nanny, an echo in Melena's mind (and editorializing as usual): No, no, you pretty little pampered hussy. We don't go on having babies, that's quite apparent. 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.But men don't dry up, Melena objected; they can father to the death.Ah, we're slow learners, Nanny countered. But they can't learn at all.”
Source: Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
“"This is why you shouldn't fall in love, it blinds you. Love is wicked distraction [...] The wickedness of men is that their power breeds stupidity and blindness," [Elphaba] said."And of women?""Women are weaker, but their weakness is full of cunning and an equally rigid moral certainty. Since their arena is smaller, their capacity for real damage is less alarming. Though being more intimate they are the more treacherous."”
Source: Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
“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, 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 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 manners of slight and offense.”
Source: Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
“The real thing about evil… you figure out one side of it - the human side, say - and the eternal side goes into shadow. Or vice versa. The real disaster of this inquiry is that it is the nature of evil to be secret.”
Source: Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
“To the grim poor there need be no pour quoi tale about where evil arises; it just 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 a devil? It is at the very least a question of definitions.”
Source: Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
“It isn’t hard to find evil in this world,' said the Witch. 'Evil is always more easily imagined than good.”
Source: Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
“"But maybe there's something to what you say," said Elphaba. "I mean, evil and boredom. Evil and ennui. Evil and the lack of stimulation. Evil and sluggish blood.""You're writing a poem, it sounds like. Why ever would a girl be interested in evil?""I'm not interested in it. It's just what the early sermons are all on about. So I'm thinking about what they're thinking about, that's all. Sometimes they talk about diet and not eating Animals, and then I think of that. I just like to think about what I'm reading. Don't you?""I don't read very well. So I don't think I think very well either." Galinda smiled. "I dress to kill, though."”
Source: Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
“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 anyway better than the rest of us, that you have to be wary of.”
Source: Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
“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? It is at the very least a question of definitions.”
Source: Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
“No one is too good [...] You're on your own now, Sister Elphie, and may all the stars smile you on your way!”
Source: Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
“I have always felt like a pawn... My skin color's been a curse, my missionary parents made me sober and intense, my school days brought me up against political crimes against Animals, my love life imploded and my lover died, and if I had any life's work of my own, I haven't found it yet, except in animal husbandry, if you could call it that.”
Source: Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
“Our home is our castle [...] Some removal from all this is healthy. We retain our moral fiber, unsullied.”
Source: Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
“Galinda didn't see the verdant world through the glass of the carriage; she saw her own reflection instead. She had the nearsightedness of youth. She reasoned that because she was beautiful she was significant, though what she signified, and to whom, was not clear yet...She was, after all, on her way to Shiz because she was smart.
But there was more than one way to be smart.”
Source: Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
“Her head had turned quickly away...Not to hide her tears but to soften the fact of their absence.”
Source: Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
“As the first hard drops of rain fell, the Witch caught sight, not of the girl's face, but of the shoes. Her sister's shoes. They sparkled even in the darkening afternoon. They sparkled like yellow diamonds, and embers of blood, and thorny stars.”
Source: Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
“We don't go on having babies, that's quite apparent. 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.
But men don't dry up, Melena objected; they can father to the death.
Ah we're slow learners, Nanny countered. But *they* can't learn at all.”
Source: Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
“Woe is the natural end of life, yet we go on having babies.”
Source: Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
“I keep hoping that the Wizard will be toppled in my lifetime, and this aim seems to be at odds with happiness.”
Source: Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
“Le malheur est l'issue naturelle de la vie, et pourtant nous continuons à faire des bébés.”
Source: Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
“Dis-moi de me mêler de ce qui me regarde, dis-moi d'aller me faire foutre, vas-y, dis-le moi, mais ne me dit pas "tout va bien".”
Source: Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
“Peut-être chaque groupe humain accidentellement réuni connait-il une période de grâce, entre la timidité et les préjugés du début, et l'écoeurement de la trahison de la fin.”
Source: Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
“Les mourants essaient souvent de déchiffrer, au tout dernier moment, l'énigme de leurs vies. Vain effort, bien sûr.”
Source: Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
“Je réfléchis toujours, mais je ne ressens jamais rien, et je ne vis jamais rien, gémit Boq. Je ne peux pas vivre, une fois de temps en temps ? Rien qu'une fois ? Je suis petit mais je ne suis pas un bébé, Elphie !”
Source: Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
“Je n'utilise jamais le mot "humaniste" ou "humanitaire", car il me semble qu'être humain, c'est être capable des pires crimes de la nature.”
Source: Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
“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.”
Source: Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
“Voilà pourquoi il ne faut pas tomber amoureux, ça rend aveugle. L'amour est une vilaine source de distraction.”
Source: Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
“Les femmes sont plus faibles, mais leur faiblesse est pleine de ruses et de certitudes morales tout aussi rigides. Comme leur arène est plus réduite, leur capacité destructrice réelle est moins inquiétante, mais comme elle sont plus intimes, elles sont plus fourbes.”
Source: Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
“Elphie se dit : qu'elles sottes créatures que ces enfants - d'une sottise gênante - qui n'arrêtent pas de changer, par honte, par besoin d'être aimé, ou que sais-je encore. Les animaux, eux, sont nés comme ils sont, l'acceptent, et c'est tout. Ils vivent plus sereinement que les gens.”
Source: Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
“Of course we can all hope. Not much more than that, I'm afraid.”
Source: Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
“Animals in pens have lots of time to develop theories", said the Cow, "I've heard more than one clever creature draw a connection between the rise of tiktokism and the erosion of traditional Animal labour. We weren't beasts of burden, but we were good reliable labourers. If we were made redundant in the workforce, it was only a matter of time before we'd be socially redundant too.”
Source: Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
“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.”
Source: Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
“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.”
Source: Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
“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.”
Source: Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
“La gente que dice ser malvada no suele ser peor que el resto de nosotros -suspiró-. Pero la gente que dice ser buena, o mejor que los demás en algún aspecto, esa gente sí que es peligrosa.”
Source: Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
“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.”
Source: Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
“A perfect word for my new life. Unbecoming. I who have always been unbecoming am becoming un.”
Source: Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
“She looked for all the world like a giant carp in a men's club. And a dull, bored carp at that, not even a sentient Carp.”
Source: Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
“Those times are over and gone, and good-riddance to them, too. We were hopelessly high-spirited. Now we're the thick-waisted generation, dragging along our children behind us and carrying our parents on our backs. And we're in charge, while the figures who used to command our respect are wasting away.”
Source: Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
“Is it the sheer nature of the beast within, the human animal inside the Human Being?”
Source: Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West