“You know you're a Puritan when you feel that even the Bible needs to be cleaned up.”

“The big break from the past may come when speech recognition software is perfected. At that point we'll be able to write simply by talking: Speak into your computer's recorder, and it'll do all the messy work of punctuation and spelling. This could result in the elimination of the keyboard, [Dennis] Baron speculates. 'We'd get back to oral composition--reinventing Homer.”

“But his face had that hollow look, as if there was something gone... you know that look. The inward focus. Distantly attentive to the home you're missing, or the someone you're missing. That look that a bird has when it turns it dry reptilian eye on you. That look that doesn't see you because the mind is filled up with someone it would rather see.”

“The mister days that letters are the key, but even when you know the whole family, there's so many combinations you can make. And they break their word.”

“You could say that Elphaba brought us together,' said Boq softly. 'I'm closer to her and so I'm closer to you.'Galinda seemed to give up. She leaned her head back on the velvet cushions of the swing and said, 'Boq, you know despite myself I think you're a little sweet. You're a little sweet and you're a little charming and you're a little maddening and you're a little habit-forming.'Boq held his breath.But you're little!' she concluded. 'You're a Munchkin, for god's sake!'He kissed her, he kissed her, he kissed her, little by little by little.”

“Books fall open, you fall in. When you climb out again, you're a bit larger than you used to be.”

“There are two kinds of anger: hot and cold. Boys and girls experience both, but as they grow up the anger separates according to the sex. Boys need hot anger to survive. They need inclination to fight, the drive to sink the knife into the flesh, the energy and initiative of fury. It's a requirement of hunting, of defense, of pride. Maybe of sex too. And girls need cold anger. They need the cold simmer, the ceaseless grudge, the talent to avoid forgiveness, the sidestepping of compromise. They need to know when they say something that they will never back down, ever, ever. It's the compensation for a more limited scope in the world. Cross a man and you struggle, one of you wins, you would adjust and go on -- or you lie there dead. Cross a woman and the universe is changed, once again, for cold anger requires an eternal vigilance in all matters of slight and offense.”