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?

It was mild monsters like these that made Jack the Ripper go after young women, she decided: who could tolerate yielding the world to someone who behaved as if she had given birth to the very world herself?

In the lives of children, pumpkins turn into coaches, mice and rats turn into men. When we grow up, we realize it is far more common for men to turn into rats.

We start out in identical perfection: bright, reflective, full of sun. The accident of our lives bruises us into dirty individuality. We meet with grief. Our character dulls and tarnishes. We meet with guilt. We know, we know: the price of living is corruption. There isn’t as much light as there once was. In the grave we lapse back into undifferentiated sameness

The moon rose, an opalescent goddess tipping light from her harsh maternal scimitar.

A man is called a traitor, or liberator. A rich man is a thief or philanthropist. Is one a crusader or ruthless invader? It's all in which label is able to persist.

Starlight and comet tails burned the tips of endless grass below into hammered silver. Like thousands of tapers in the chapel, just blown out but still glowing. If one could drown in the grass...it might be the best way to die.