Elphaba looked like something between an animal and an Animal, like something more than life but not quite Life. There was an expectancy but no intuition, was that it? - like a child who has never remembered having a dream being told to have sweet dreams. You'd almost call it unrefined, but not in a social sense - more in a sense of nature not having done its full job with Elphaba, not quite having managed to make her enough like herself.

"But they believe in evil still", said Galinda with a yawn. "Isn't that funny, that deity is passé but the attributes and implications of deity linger - "

I've told you before, I don't comprehend religion, although conviction is a concept I'm beginning to get. In any case, someone with a real religious conviction is, I propose, a religious convict, and deserves locking up.

"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."
"If not immoral, then what word can I use to imply wrong?" said Elphaba.
"Try mysterious and then relax a little. The thing is, my green girlie, it is not for a girl, or a student, or a citizen to assess what is wrong. This is the job of leaders, and why we exist."
"But then nothing would keep me from assassinating you, did I not know what wrong was."

Was it an accident I saw that, Fiyero wondered, looking at the manager with new eyes. Or is it just that the world unwraps itself to you, again and again, as soon as you are ready to see it anew?

There was much to hate in this world, and too much to love.

"When the times are a crucible, when the air is full of crisis," she said, "those who are the most themselves are the victims."

"I tried to, as a child," said Elphie. "I made an effort. The mothy, gormless, indistinct sunrise of salvation world - the Other Land - I couldn't get it, I couldn't focus. Now I just think it's our own lives that are hidden from us. The mystery - who is that person in the mirror - that's shocking and unfathomable enough for me."

The more civilized we become, the more horrendous our entertainments.

"[...] People who claim that they're evil are usually no worse than the rest of us." He sighed. "It's people who claim that they're good, or anyway better than the rest of us, that you have to be wary of."