“There were more ways to live than the ones given by one's superiors”

“Aren't these the finest treasures? Each one springs up, and becomes more red than rubies, more fine than diamonds adn more valuable, so we are told; and before you can run back here again to look, the petals have begin to drop and the leaves to yellow. Look, they sag, they fall. Are they the more wonderful because they live such a short time.”

“I may not be sure if monsters exist, but I’d rather live my life in doubt than be persuaded by a real experience of one.”

“There were people everywhere but no one was mine, and I was no one's.”

“Galinda didn't see the verdant world through the glass of the carriage; she saw her own reflection instead. She had the nearsightedness of youth. She reasoned that because she was beautiful she was significant, though what she signified, and to whom, was not clear yet...She was, after all, on her way to Shiz because she was smart. But there was more than one way to be smart.”

“If one could drown in the grass, thought Elphie, that might be the best way to die.”

“What more does one ask of life, really, but to stagger from moment to moment with a reason to wake and wait for the next reason to wake?”