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

“Yet who can say how our souls have been stamped by witnessing such a cruel drama? All souls are hostages to their human envelopes, but souls must decay and suffer at such indignity, don't you agree? ”

“I am a woman who slept with my father the Pope.They say I did, at least, and so does he.And who am I to make of the Pope a liar,And who is he to make a liar of me?”

“Why should I keep myself so safe?” he asked her, but he was almost asking himself. What is there in my life worth preserving? With a good wife back there in the mountains, serviceable as an old spoon, dry in the heart from having been scared of marriage since she was six? With three children so shy of their father, the Prince of the Arjikis, that they will hardly come near him? With a careworn clan moving here, moving there, going through th same disputes, herding the same herds, as thy have done for five hundred years? And me, with a shallow and undirected mind, no artfulness in word or habit, no especial kindness toward the world? What is there that makes my life worth preserving?“I love you,” said Elphaba.“So that’s that then, and that’s it,” he answered her and himself. “And I love you. So I promise to be careful.”

“It's been a long rocky life, with plenty of possibility but too much human ugliness.”

“Are you the dart?" he said. "Are you the knife? The fuse?" She said (though he wasn't convinced): "My deane, my poppet, I am too green to walk into a public place and do something bad...”

“It's the only condition I know. Bitter Love, Loneliness, contempt for corruption, blind hope. It's where I live. A permanent state of bereavement. This is nothing new.”