Gregory Maguire Quotes

From death's perspective, there are no differences between people; there are no presidents or flight attendants, no faiths or nations. There is just the person, always dear.

It was despairing to find out that I am mortal.

My father died when I was only five years old, and that was the moment when I learned a cruel lesson that tomorrow, in fact, might not be another day.

Life is a foreign language; all men mispronounce it.

We live in a homogenized world, where it's hard to get excited when everything is slick and professional. The interesting things are the dull things.

No mortal man, moreover is wise at all moments.

I recognize that I'm human, and the older I get, the more I realize how fallible I am, how fallible we all are.

Every man is born as many men and dies as a single one.

No man is so perfect, so necessary to his friends, as to give them no cause to miss him less.

There is some suffering that awaits us all.

It's a fallen world. We eat and sacrifice in the process.

The fact that we're all here in these bodies means that we're not perfected.

I'm against the ways of the world where people feel like they need to always make things too perfect.

I love the flaws and foibles of people - I'm much more interested in that than perfections.

Dying is one of those things that can’t be fixed. Not by talking about it, not with all the brain surge in the world.

Dead, your Majesty. Dead, my lords and gentlemen. Dead, Right Reverends and Wrong Reverends of every order. Dead, men and women, born with Heavenly compassion in your hearts. And dying thus around us every day.

We are not immortal ourselves, my friend; how can we expect our enjoyments to be so? We have no rose without its thorn; no pleasure without alloy. It is the law of our existence; and we must acquiesce.

What need is there to weep over parts of life? The whole of it calls for tears.

We are born alone, we live alone, we die alone. Everything in-between is a gift.

There is no perfection only life

Human existence basically is──a never to be completed imperfect tense.

The living is not perfect because it is liable to change; the dead is not perfect because it does not live.

A man is a god in ruins.

For Death who takes what man would keep, Leaves what man would lose.