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

If you have an ancestor who is a Benedictine monk, we would rather not know it.

I had written childrens books for 14 years before I published Wicked. And none of them were poorly reviewed, and none of them sold enough for me to be able to buy a bed.

Galinda didn't often stop to consider whether she believed in what she said or not; the whole point of conversations was flow.

Not an ugly color, Nanny thought. Just not a human color.

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.

Indeed, she often wondered if she were dead, or dying from the inside out, and that was the root of her calm, the reason she could surrender her character.