#wicked

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. ↗

— Gregory Maguire

#fiyero #gregory-maguire #love #wicked #art

That's the real power of art, I think. Not to chide but to provoke challenge. Otherwise why bother? ↗

— Gregory Maguire

#art

God has a most wicked sense of humor. ↗

— Maureen O'Hara

#humor #most #sense #sense of humor #wicked

I inquired what wickedness is, and I didn't find a substance, but a perversity of will twisted away from the highest substance – You oh God – towards inferior things, rejecting its own inner life and swelling with external matter. ↗

— Augustine of Hippo

#sin #wickedness #life

Cruelty to men and to the lower animals as well, which would have passed unnoticed a century ago, now shocks the sensibilities and is regarded as wicked and degrading. ↗

— Elihu Root

#century #cruelty #degrading #lower #lower animals

War never takes a wicked man by chance, the good man always. ↗

— Sophocles

#chance #good #good man #man #never

Wicked thoughts and worthless efforts gradually set their mark on the face, especially the eyes. ↗

— Arthur Schopenhauer

#especially #eyes #face #gradually #mark

What she looks like and what she is capable of doing are two different things. Wickedly beautiful. ↗

— Cameron Jace

#wicked #beauty

Are those paper clips?' I'd seen them in catalogs, but the pictures don't do them justice. They're beautiful, in an industrial sort of way. Eldric poured a clinking waterfall into my palm. 'Aren't they lovely! I can't keep my hands off them. But I give you fair warning: It was a box of paper clips that got me expelled.' 'Expelled?' 'A box of thousand paper clips,' he said, his long fingers curling, coiling, twisting. 'And a sack of colored glass.' 'Expelled!' I might be a wicked girl who'd think nothing of eating a baby for breakfast, but I'd never allow myself to get expelled. It's far too public. ↗

— Franny Billingsley

#beauty

Additionally, Adam’s room had an absolutely massive bed with a plump feather tick that she knew they would put to good use. “Shall we christen it now?” Adam whispered in her ear, his arms stealing around her from behind in spite of the footmen who were still busy bringing up their luggage. Skimming his lips over her cheek, he playfully caressed her nape in a way that never failed to drive her wild. “I could shoo them all out and lock the door. We wouldn’t even have to take off our clothes, I could just tumble you down and toss up your skirts. What do you say, wife, shall I tup you now, or would you rather wait until later? ↗

— Tracy Anne Warren

#mallory #tracy-anne-warren #wicked-delights #business