“Secrets are revealed as you are ready to understand them. It seems capricious and mean-spirited of the Grimmerie to hold back, to yield and then to tease with a single page – but then the world is the same way, isn’t it. The world rarely shrieks its meaning at you. It whispers, in private language and obscure modalities, in arcane and quixotic imagery, through symbol systems in which every element has multiple meanings determined by juxtaposition.”
Gregory Maguire“One never learns how the witch became wicked, or whether that was the right choice for her- is it ever the right choice? Does the devil ever struggle to be good again, or if so is he not a devil?”
Gregory Maguire“A world emerging, daily, out of nothing, a world that we trust to resemble what we've seen previously. We should know better.”
Gregory Maguire, After Alice“Sometimes thought Liir-his first thought in weeks and weeks-sometimes I hate this marvelous land of ours. It's so much like home, and then it holds out on you.”
Gregory Maguire, Son of a Witch“The overdressed traveler betrays more interest in being seen than in seeing, while the true traveler knows that the novel world about her serves as the most appropriate accessory.”
Gregory Maguire, Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West“I like to think I'm a pretty good-natured guy and pretty civil and probably not ever truly guilty in any serious way of any legal infractions.”
Gregory Maguire“I think that's shameful, even if it's just a story, to propose an afterlife for evil... 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.”
Gregory Maguire“You can't be said to have properly established yourself in a place until you have been seen there.”
Gregory Maguire“Isn't that funny, that deity is passe but the attributes and implications of deity linger--”
Gregory Maguire“You leave home, I have learned, counting the trip day by day. If you ever get to return, you count the trip miracle by miracle.”
Gregory Maguire