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Gregory Maguire

Gregory Maguire Quotes

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Famous Gregory Maguire Quotes

“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.”

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Book:Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
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“"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."”

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Book:Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
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“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.”

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Book:Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
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