Growth and change were viewed as reactions to conditions met

— Gregory Maguire

He hadn't yet had enough experience with humans to know that the thing they hold dearest to their hearts, the last thing they relinquish when all else is fading, is the consoling belief in the inferiority of others.

— Gregory Maguire

He had thought love as a policy made a lot of sense for those who could manage it, and anyone who could manage it belonged in religious life. The rest of us have to struggle with more ordinary love, the common or garden variety: love as a crippling condition. Love as a syndrome.

— Gregory Maguire

He lingered at the door, and said, 'The Lion wants courage, the Tin Man a heart, and the Scarecrow brains. Dorothy wants to go home. What do you want

— Gregory Maguire

Hello, this is I, and these are my arms and legs, which are useful, and this inconvenient hump is my sorrow, which is less than useful, but I've learned how to hump it around, so pay it no mind.

— Gregory Maguire

Her head had turned quickly away... Not to hide her tears but to soften the fact of their absence.

— Gregory Maguire

He was not so lucky. He hadn't yet had enough experience with humans to know that the thing the hold dearest to their hearts, the last thing they relinquish when all else is fading, is the consoling belief in the inferiority of others.

— Gregory Maguire

I care as much as I can, but I don’t spend energy caring about things I cannot resolve.

— Gregory Maguire

I do not listen when anyone uses the word immoral," said the Wizard. "In the young it is ridiculous, in the old it is sententious and reactionary and an early warning sign of apoplexy. In the middle-aged, who love and fear the idea of moral life the most, it is hypocritical.

— Gregory Maguire

If magic was present, it moved under the skin of the world, beneath the ability of human eyes to catch sight of it.

— Gregory Maguire