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.

I may not know how to fly but I know how to read, and that's almost the same thing.

That's the real power of art, I think. Not to chide but to provoke challenge. Otherwise why bother?

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.

She assumes that skill will guide her fingertips, that shapely lines will uncoil out of the pencil the moment she starts. Surely talent is a thing curled deep inside, just waiting to be exercised, and at the slightest invitation it will stretch, shake itself, make itself known? Talent, it seems, is not so insistent.

So she listened hard. And she began to evolve, because stories work their magic that way. They build conviction and erode conviction in equal measure.

Yes, I'm nervous. You'll find in time most people are. They simply learn better how to disguise it, and sometimes, if they're wise, how to use their anxiety to serve the public good.