" I have always felt like a pawn... My skin color's been a curse, my missionary parents made me sober and intense, my school days brought me up against political crimes against Animals, my love life imploded and my lover died, and if I had any life's work of my own, I haven't found it yet, except in animal husbandry, if you could call it that. "

― Gregory Maguire , Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (The Wicked Years, #1)