No wonder Wonderland isn't funny to read anymore: We live there full time. We need a break from it.

I was just about to begin writing Mirror Mirror, within about a week of it, when September 11, 2001 happened. I found myself incapable of caring about fiction-making for a number of months.

Behold the male beast roaring in the jungle for his mate," said Elphaba. "See how the female beast giggles behind a shrub while she organizes her face to say, Pardon dear, did you say something?

Don't wish,"said Rain, "don't start. Wishing only...

It's unbecoming," she agreed. "A perfect word for my new life. Unbecoming. I who have always been unbecoming am becoming un.

The momentum of the mind can be vexingly, involuntarily capricious.

We are loping sequences of chemical conversions, acting ourselves converted. We are twists of genes acting ourselves twisted; we are wicks of burning neuroses acting ourselves wicked. And nothing to be done about it. And nothing to be done about it.