text:
The Wizard of Oz (1939 film)

The Wizard of Oz is a 1939 musical film about a young Kansas girl cast into a fantasy world. Her efforts to return home are aided by three unusual companions, each with a quest of his own.
 * Directed by Victor Fleming. Written by Noel Langley, Florence Ryerson, and Edgar Allan Woolf, based on the novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum. Music by Harold Arlen, Lyrics by Yip Harburg.

The Greatest Picture in the History of Entertainment Taglines

Dorothy

 * Someplace where there isn't any trouble... [tossing a piece of her cruller to Toto] ...do you suppose there is such a place, Toto? There must be. It's not a place you can get to by a boat or train. It's far, far away... behind the moon... beyond the rain. [singing] Somewhere, over the rainbow, way up high, There's a land that I heard of once in a lullaby. Somewhere, over the rainbow, skies are blue, And the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true.
 * Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore. We must be over the rainbow!
 * [Note: This line is ranked #4 in the American Film Institute's list of the top 100 movie quotations in American cinema].
 * Well, I... I think that it... that it wasn't enough to just want to see Uncle Henry and Auntie Em... and it's that if I ever go looking for my heart's desire again, I won't look any further than my own backyard; because if it isn't there, I never really lost it to begin with.
 * There's no place like home; there's no place like home; there's no place like home...
 * [Note: This line is ranked #23 in the American Film Institute's list of the top 100 movie quotations in American cinema].
 * [last lines] Oh, but anyway, Toto, we're home – home! And this is my room – and you're all here – and I'm not going to leave here ever, ever again, because I love you all! And... oh, Auntie Em, there's no place like home!

Scarecrow

 * Why, if I had a brain I could... [singing] I could while away the hours, Conferrin' with the flowers, Consultin' with the rain. And my head I'd be scratchin' While my thoughts were busy hatchin' If I only had a brain.

Tin Man

 * [singing] When a man's an empty kettle, He should be on his mettle, And yet I'm torn apart. Just because I'm presumin' That I could be kinda human If I only had a heart.

Cowardly Lion

 * [singing] Yeah, it's sad, believe me, Missy, When you're born to be a sissy, Without the vim and verve. But I could show my prowess, Be a lion, not a "mowess," If I only had the nerve.
 * Courage! What makes a King out of a slave? Courage! What makes the flag on the mast to wave? Courage! What makes the elephant charge his tusk in the misty mist, or the dusky dusk? What makes the muskrat guard his musk? Courage! What makes the Sphinx the Seventh Wonder? Courage! What makes the dawn come up like thunder? Courage! What makes the Hottentot so hot? What puts the ape in ape-ricot? What have they got that I ain't got? (Courage) You can say that again!
 * Read what my medal says. Courage! Ain't it the truth, ain't it the truth!

Wicked Witch of the West

 * [To Dorothy] The slippers!! Give me the slippers, dearie!!
 * [to Glinda] Very well – I'll bide my time. [to Dorothy] And as for you, my fine lady, it's true I can't attend to you here and now as I'd like; but just try to stay out of my way – just try! I'll get you, my pretty, and your little dog too! [With a burst of laughter, she whirls around and vanishes in a burst of smoke and fire and a clap of thunder.]
 * [Note: Bolded line is ranked #99 in the American Film Institute's list of the top 100 movie quotations in American cinema].
 * Take your army to the Haunted Forest and bring me that girl and her dog. You can do what you like with the others, but I want her alive and unharmed. They'll give you no trouble, I promise you that. I've sent a little insect on ahead to take the fight out of them. [cackles] Take special care of those ruby slippers. I want those most of all. Now, fly! Fly! [The winged monkeys fly out of the castle] Fly, fly, fly!
 * [cackling] Going so soon? I wouldn't hear of it. Why, my little party is just beginning.
 * [last words; screams shrilly] You cursed brat! Look what you've done! [melts] I'm melting! Melting! Oh, what a world! What a world! Who would have thought a good little girl like you could destroy my beautiful wickedness?! Ohhh! Look out! Look out! I'm going! Ohhhh – Ohhhhhhhhhh!

The Wizard

Who are you?
 * I AM  OZ.... the Great and Powerful!
 * Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain! The Great Oz has spoken!
 * Why, anybody can have a brain. That's a very mediocre commodity. Every pusillanimous creature that crawls on the Earth or slinks through slimy seas has a brain. Back where I come from, we have universities, seats of great learning, where men go to become great thinkers. And when they come out, they think deep thoughts and with no more brains than you have. But they have one thing you haven't got: a diploma.
 * [to the Tin Man] A heart is not judged by how much you love; but by how much you are loved by others.
 * [to the Lion] You, my friend, are a victim of disorganized thinking. You are under the unfortunate impression that just because you run away you have no courage; you're confusing courage with wisdom.

Glinda

 * [to Dorothy] Are you a good witch or a bad witch?
 * Only bad witches are ugly.
 * [to the Wicked Witch of the West] You have no power here! Begone, before somebody drops a house on you too!
 * You always had the power my dear, you just had to learn it for yourself.

The Munchkins

 * Ding Dong, the witch is dead, Which old witch? The wicked witch. Ding Dong, the wicked witch is dead!
 * You're off to see the Wizard, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. You'll find he is a whiz of a Wiz If ever a Wiz there was. If ever, oh ever, a Wiz there was The Wizard of Oz is one because Because, because, because, because, because... Because of the wonderful things he does.

Aunt Em

 * [about Toto] He's really gentle... with gentle people, that is.
 * Almira Gulch! Just because you own half the county doesn't mean that you have the power to run the rest of us. For 23 years, I've been dying to tell you what I thought of you, and now... well, being a Christian woman, I can't say it!

Dialogue

 * Miss Gulch: Mr. Gale?
 * Uncle Henry: Howdy, Miss Gulch.
 * Miss Gulch: I want to see you and your wife right away about Dorothy.
 * Uncle Henry: Dorothy? Well, what has Dorothy done?
 * Miss Gulch: What she's done? I'm all but lame from the bite on my leg!
 * Uncle Henry: You mean she bit you?
 * Miss Gulch: No, her dog.
 * Uncle Henry: Oh. She bit her dog, eh?
 * Miss Gulch: ...NO!

 * Glinda: Keep tight inside of them. Their magic must be very powerful, or she wouldn't want them so badly.
 * Wicked Witch: You stay out of this, Glinda, or I'll fix you as well!
 * Glinda: [laughs] Rubbish! you have no power here. Be gone, before someone drops a house on you!

 * Dorothy: Did you do that on purpose, or can't you make up your mind?
 * Scarecrow: That's the trouble, I can't make up my mind. I haven't got a brain... only straw.
 * Dorothy: How can you talk if you haven't got a brain?
 * Scarecrow: I don't know....but some people without brains do an awful lot of talking, don't they?
 * Dorothy: Yes, I guess you're right.

 * Dorothy: Do – do you suppose we'll meet any wild animals?
 * Tin Man: We might.
 * Dorothy: Oh!
 * Scarecrow: Animals that – that eat straw?
 * Tin Man: Uh, some. But mostly lions and tigers and bears.
 * Dorothy: Lions?
 * Scarecrow: And tigers?
 * Tin Man: [nodding] And bears.
 * Dorothy: Oh! Lions and tigers and bears. Oh my!

 * Dorothy: [noticing the horse drawing their carriage is one of changing colors] What kind of a horse is that? I've never seen a horse like that before!
 * Coachman: No, and never will again, I fancy! There's only one of him, and he's it. He's the Horse of a Different Color you've heard tell about!

 * Guard: The Wizard says, Go away! [Goes back to the Wizard's palace]
 * Dorothy, Cowardly Lion, Scarecrow, and Tin Man: [shocked together] Go away?
 * Scarecrow: [sadly] Looks like we came a long way for nothing.
 * Dorothy: [sobs and sits down] And I was so happy. I thought I was on my way home.
 * Tin Man: [comforting Dorothy] Don't cry, Dorothy. We're gonna get you to the Wizard.
 * Scarecrow: [agreeing] We certainly are.
 * [The guard opens the door's window, regretfully]
 * Dorothy: [crying] Auntie Em was so good to me, and I never appreciated it, running away and hurting her feelings. Professor Marvel said she was sick. She may be dying and it's all my fault.
 * [The guard starts crying]
 * Dorothy: I'll never forgive myself. Never, never, never. [Scarecrow and Tin Man continue to comfort Dorothy]
 * Guard: [sobbing] Please, don't cry anymore. I'll get you to the Wizard somehow. Come on. I had an Aunt Em myself once. [Sobs and opens the door for Dorothy and her friends]

 * Wizard of Oz: I AM OZ! The Great and Powerful. Who are you? [no answer] Who are you?
 * Dorothy: I am Dorothy, the small and meek. We've come to…
 * Wizard of Oz: Silence! The great and powerful Oz knows why you have come. Step forward, Tin Man.
 * [Tin Man slowly and shakily steps forward]
 * Wizard of Oz: You dare to come to me for a heart, do you? You clinking, clanking, collection of collision-ous junk.
 * Tin Man: [whimpers] Y-yes, sir. Y-yes, Your Honor. You see, a while back, we were walking down the yellow brick road and--
 * The Wizard of Oz: QUIET!
 * [Tin Man runs back to his group]
 * The Wizard of Oz: And you, Scarecrow, have the effrontery to ask for a brain, you billowing bale of bovine fodder.
 * Scarecrow: Yes, Your Honor. I mean, Your Excellency. I mean, Y-Your Wizardry.
 * The Wizard of Oz: Enough. And you, Lion.
 * [The Cowardly Lion walks forward, but still afraid]
 * The Wizard of Oz: Well?!
 * [The Cowardly Lion faints, and Dorothy, Scarecrow, and Tin Man try to get him to wake up]
 * Dorothy: [angrily, to the Wizard] You oughta be ashamed of yourself! frightening him like that when he came to you for help.
 * The Wizard of Oz: Silence, whippersnapper! The beneficent Oz has every intention of granting your requests.
 * Cowardly Lion: [comes to] What's that? What'd he say? What'd he say?
 * The Wizard of Oz: But first, you must prove yourselves worthy by performing a very small task. Bring me the broomstick of the Witch of the West.
 * Tin Man: But we have to kill her altogether.
 * The Wizard of Oz: Bring me her broomstick, and I'll grant your requests. Now, go.
 * Cowardly Lion: But what if she kills us first?
 * The Wizard of Oz: I said go!
 * [Once again frightened, the Cowardly Lion runs out of the Wizard's throne room and jumps through the window]

 * Cowardly Lion: What's that? What's that?
 * Scarecrow: That's the castle of the Wicked Witch! Dorothy's in that awful place!
 * Tin Man: O, I hate to think of her in there! We've got to get her out!
 * Scarecrow: Don't cry now! We haven't got the oil-can with us and you've been squeaking enough as it is!
 * Cowardly Lion: Who's them? Who's them?
 * [The Winkie Guards enter, marching in formation to the tune of an ominous chant]
 * Winkies: Oh-we-um; io-on!
 * Scarecrow: I've got a plan to get in there…
 * Cowardly Lion: He's got a plan!
 * Scarecrow: An' you're gonna lead us!
 * Cowardly Lion: M-m-me?
 * Scarecrow: Yes, you!
 * Cowardly Lion: I gotta get in there?
 * [Scarecrow and Tin Man nod].
 * Cowardly Lion: [hesitates]. All right; I'll go in there for Dorothy. Wicked Witch or no Wicked Witch. Guards or no guards; I'll tear 'em apart. I may not come out alive, but I'm goin' in there! There's only one thing I want you fellas to do.
 * Scarecrow and Tin Man: What's that?
 * Cowardly Lion: Talk me out of it.
 * [He backs down; the others prop him up, and all three go nearer to the gate. Toto barks; the Scarecrow quiets him. Three Winkie guards attack from behind. They fight; the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, and the Lion re-enter, dressed in the Winkies' uniforms].
 * Scarecrow: Come on, I've got another plan!
 * Cowardly Lion: D'you think it'll be polite, dropping in like this?
 * [They join the formation entering the castle].
 * Tin Man: Where do we go now?
 * Cowardly Lion: Yeah!
 * [Toto barks and leads the way upstairs]
 * Scarecrow: There!

 * Captain of the Winkie Guard: [After looking at the remains of the Wicked Witch of the West] She's dead! You killed her!
 * Dorothy: I didn't mean to. It's just the Scarecrow was on fire.
 * Captain of the Winkie Guard: HAIL TO DOROTHY, THE WICKED WITCH IS DEAD!!!
 * Winkie Guards: HAIL TO DOROTHY, THE WICKED WITCH IS DEAD!!!
 * Dorothy: The broom! May we have it?

 * Dorothy: Here's the broom of the Wicked Witch of the West. We melted her.
 * Wizard of Oz: Oh, you liquidated her, eh?

 * Wizard of Oz: As for you, my galvanized friend, you want a heart. You don't know how lucky you are not to have one. Hearts will never be practical until they can be made unbreakable.
 * Tin Man: But I still want one.

 * Dorothy: Goodbye, Tin Man. Oh, don't cry! You'll rust so dreadfully. Here's your oil can.
 * Tin Man: Oh, thank you. Now I know I've got a heart, 'cause it's breaking... And it's saying Thank you, Dorothy.
 * Dorothy: Goodbye, Lion. I know it isn't right, but I'm going to miss the way you used to holler for help before you found your courage.
 * Cowardly Lion: Oh, thank you. I never would've found it if it hadn't been for you...
 * Dorothy: [to Scarecrow] I think I'm going to miss you most of all.

Taglines

 * The Greatest Picture In The History Of Entertainment!
 * Gaiety! Glory! Glamour!
 * Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's Technicolor Triumph!
 * Biggest Screen Sensation Since "Snow White"!
 * The Mighty Miracle Show That Is The Talk Of America!
 * Amazing Sights To See ! The Tornado . . . Munchkinland . . . Horse Of A Different Color . . . Startling Balloon Ascent . . . Flying Monkeys . . . Trees That Talk And Throw Apples.
 * Mighty Miracle Show Of 1000 Delights!

Quotes about The Wizard of Oz

 * It's a wonderful universal story. I mean you look at the Wizard of Oz — it takes a reality which is the beginning of the movie, and turns it into a mythology. … You know all great story telling is a form of myth.
 * Caleb Deschanel, These Amazing Shadows (2011)
 * I would watch Wizard of Oz, like every day, when I was two. I had a hard time understanding that I couldn't go into the film, because it felt so real to me.
 * Zooey Deschanel, These Amazing Shadows (2011)

Cast

 * Judy Garland – Dorothy Gale
 * Frank Morgan – Professor Marvel/Emerald City Doorman/Coachman/The Wizard's Guard/The Wizard
 * Ray Bolger – Hunk/The Scarecrow
 * Bert Lahr – Zeke/The Cowardly Lion
 * Jack Haley – Hickory/The Tin Man
 * Billie Burke – Glinda
 * Margaret Hamilton – Miss Almira Gulch/The Wicked Witch of the West
 * Charley Grapewin – Uncle Henry
 * – Nikko, the Wicked Witch's Head Winged Monkey
 * Clara Blandick – Aunt Em
 * Terry (credited as Toto) – Toto the Dog

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: The Wizard of Oz (1939 film)


text:
L. Frank Baum

Lyman Frank Baum (15 May 1856 – 6 May 1919) was an American author, actor, and independent filmmaker best known as the creator, along with illustrator William Wallace Denslow, of one of the most popular books in American children's literature, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
 * See also: The Wizard of Oz (the 1939 film, based on his stories.)

Quotes

 * When I was a boy I was tremendously interested in scarecrows. They always seemed to my childish imagination as just about to wave their arms, straighten up and stalk across the field on their long legs. I lived on a farm, you know. It was natural then that my first character in this animated life series was the scarecrow, on whom I have taken revenge for all the mystic feeling he once inspired.
 * Then came the Tin Woodman, named because of the oddity of a Woodman made of tin, and then Pumpkinhead, and now, of course, the Wogglebug.
 * Statement on characters in the The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and its sequels, as quoted in "Philadelphia North American", (3 October 1904); also at  "Map of Kansas Literature" Washburn.edu''.

 * Now we can cross the Shifting Sands.
 * Last words, to his wife Maud (6 May 1919), as quoted in Uncovering Lives : The Uneasy Alliance of Biography and Psychology (1994) by Alan C. Elms, p. 154

Letters and essays

 * When I was young I longed to write a great novel that should win me fame. Now that I am getting old my first book is written to amuse children. For aside from my evident inability to do anything "great," I have learned to regard fame as a will-o-the-wisp which, when caught, is not worth the possession; but to please a child is a sweet and lovely thing that warms one's heart and brings its own reward.
 * Personal inscription on a copy of Mother Goose in Prose (1897) which he gave to his sister, Mary Louise Baum Brewster, as quoted in The Making of the Wizard of Oz (1998) by Aljean Harmetz, p. 317

 * The scenery and costumes of 'The Wizard of Oz' were all made in New York — Mr. Mitchell was a New York favorite, but the author was undoubtedly a Chicagoan, and therefore a legitimate butt for the shafts of criticism. So the critics highly praised the Poppy scene, the Kansas cyclone, the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman, but declared the libretto was very bad and teemed with 'wild and woolly western puns and forced gags.' Now, all that I claim in the libretto of 'The Wizard of Oz' is the creation of the characters of the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman, the story of their search for brains and a heart, and the scenic effects of the Poppy Field and the cyclone. These were a part of my published fairy tale, as thousands of readers well know. I have published fifteen books of fairy tales, which may be found in all prominent public and school libraries, and they are entirely free, I believe, from the broad jokes the New York critics condemn in the extravaganza, and which, the New York people are now laughing over. In my original manuscript of the play were no 'gags' nor puns whatever. But Mr. Hamlin stated positively that no stage production could succeed without that accepted brand of humor, and as I knew I was wholly incompetent to write those 'comic paper side-splitters' I employed one of the foremost New York 'tinkerers' of plays to write into my manuscript these same jokes that are now declared 'wild and woolly' and 'smacking of Chicago humor.' If the New York critics only knew it, they are praising a Chicago author for the creation of the scenic effects and characters entirely new to the stage, and condemning a well-known New York dramatist for a brand of humor that is palpably peculiar to Puck and Judge. I am amused whenever a New York reviewer attacks the libretto of 'The Wizard of Oz' because it 'comes from Chicago.'"
 * Letter to "Music and the Drama", The Chicago Record-Herald (3 February 1903)

 * It is a callous age; we have seen so many marvels that we are ashamed to marvel more; the seven wonders of the world have become seven thousand wonders.
 * "Julius Caesar: An Appreciation of the Hollywood Production" in The Mercury (15 June 1916)

 * Some of my youthful readers are developing wonderful imaginations. This pleases me. Imagination has brought mankind through the Dark Ages to its present state of civilization. Imagination led Columbus to discover America. Imagination led Franklin to discover electricity. Imagination has given us the steam engine, the telephone, the talking-machine, and the automobile, for these things had to be dreamed of before they became realities. So I believe that dreams — day dreams, you know, with your eyes wide open and your brain machinery whizzing — are likely to lead to the betterment of the world. The imaginative child will become the imaginative man or woman most apt to create, to invent, and therefore to foster civilization. A prominent educator tells me that fairy tales are of untold value in developing imagination in the young. I believe it.
 * Introduction to The Lost Princess of Oz (1917)

 * As the years pass, and we look back on something which, at the time, seemed unbelievably discouraging and unfair, we come to realize that, after all, God was at all times on our side. The eventual outcome was, we discover, by far the best solution for us, and what we thought should have been to our best advantage, would in reality have been quite detrimental.
 * Letter to his eldest son, Frank Joslyn Baum (September 1918)

The Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer (1890 and 1891)

 * Editorials from a small newspaper Baum edited for a time in Aberdeen, South Dakota.

 * The absurd and legendary devil is the enigma of the Church.
 * The Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer (18 October 1890)

He was not a Chief, but without Kingly lineage he arose from a lowly position to the greatest Medicine Man of his time, by virtue of his shrewdness and daring. He was an Indian with a white man's spirit of hatred and revenge for those who had wronged him and his. In his day he saw his son and his tribe gradually driven from their possessions: forced to give up their old hunting grounds and espouse the hard working and uncongenial avocations of the whites. And these, his conquerors, were marked in their dealings with his people by selfishness, falsehood and treachery. What wonder that his wild nature, untamed by years of subjection, should still revolt? What wonder that a fiery rage still burned within his breast and that he should seek every opportunity of obtaining vengeance upon his natural enemies.
 * Sitting Bull, most renowned Sioux of modern history, is dead.
 * Saturday Pioneer (20 December 1890)

We cannot honestly regret their extermination, but we at least do justice to the manly characteristics possessed, according to their lights and education, by the early Redskins of America.
 * The proud spirit of the original owners of these vast prairies inherited through centuries of fierce and bloody wars for their possession, lingered last in the bosom of Sitting Bull. With his fall the nobility of the Redskin is extinguished, and what few are left are a pack of whining curs who lick the hand that smites them. The Whites, by law of conquest, by justice of civilization, are masters of the American continent, and the best safety of the frontier settlements will be secured by the total annihilation of the few remaining Indians. Why not annihilation? Their glory has fled, their spirit broken, their manhood effaced; better that they die than live the miserable wretches that they are. History would forget these latter despicable beings, and speak, in later ages of the glory of these grand Kings of forest and plain that Cooper loved to heroism.
 * Saturday Pioneer (20 December 1890)

The Pioneer has before declared that our only safety depends upon the total extirmination of the Indians. Having wronged them for centuries we had better, in order to protect our civilization, follow it up by one more wrong and wipe these untamed and untamable creatures from the face of the earth. In this lies future safety for our settlers and the soldiers who are under incompetent commands. Otherwise, we may expect future years to be as full of trouble with the redskins as those have been in the past.
 * The peculiar policy of the government in employing so weak and vacillating a person as General Miles to look after the uneasy Indians, has resulted in a terrible loss of blood to our soldiers, and a battle which, at its best, is a disgrace to the war department. There has been plenty of time for prompt and decisive measures, the employment of which would have prevented this disaster.
 * Saturday Pioneer (3 January 1891)

 * An eastern contemporary, with a grain of wisdom in its wit, says that "when the whites win a fight, it is a victory, and when the Indians win it, it is a massacre."
 * Saturday Pioneer (3 January 1891)

Short stories

 * His father thought he had a wond'rous wise look when he was born, and so he named him Solomon, thinking that if indeed he turned out to be wise the name would fit him nicely, whereas, should he be mistaken, and the boy grow up stupid, his name could be easily changed to Simon.
 * "The Wond'rous Wise Man", in Mother Goose in Prose (1897)

 * Burglars! Good gracious!' cried the little woman, springing from the bed in one bound. The word 'burglar' was a terrible one to her, as it is indeed, to every well-constituted woman. 'Robbery' does not sound nearly so awe-inspiring.
 * "The Loveridge Burglary" (1900)

Popopo thanked the wise king and followed his advice. The office of every newspaper and magazine in the city was visited by the knook, and then he went to other cities, until there was not a publication in the land that had not a "new fashion note" in its pages. Sometimes Popopo enchanted the types, so that whoever read the print would see only what the knook wished them to. Sometimes he called upon the busy editors and befuddled their brains until they wrote exactly what he wanted them to. Mortals seldom know how greatly they are influenced by fairies, knooks and ryls, who often put thoughts into their heads that only the wise little immortals could have conceived. The following morning when the poor milliner looked over her newspaper she was overjoyed to read that "no woman could now wear a bird upon her hat and be in style, for the newest fashion required only ribbons and laces."
 * "Make them read that it is no longer the fashion to wear birds upon hats. That will afford relief to your poor milliner and at the same time set free thousands of our darling birds who have been so cruelly used."
 * "The Enchanted Types", in American Fairy Tales (1901)

"Why don't you become a witch?" asked the man. "Me!" gasped Mary-Marie, amazed. "A witch!" "Why not?” he inquired, as if surprised. "Well," said the girl, laughing. "I'm not old enough. Witches, you know, are withered dried-up old hags." "Oh, not at all!" returned the stranger. "And they sell their souls to Satan, in return for a knowledge of witchcraft," continued Mary-Marie more seriously. "Stuff and nonsense!" cried the stranger angrily. “And all the enjoyment they get in life is riding broomsticks through the air on dark nights," declared the girl. "Well, well, well!" said the old man in an astonished tone. "One might think you knew all about witches, to hear you chatter. But your words prove you to be very ignorant of the subject. You may find good people and bad people in the world; and so, I suppose, you may find good witches and bad witches. But I must confess most of the witches I have known were very respectable, indeed, and famous for their kind actions." "Oh. I'd like to be that kind of witch!" said Mary-Marie, clasping her hands earnestly.
 * "But what can I do?" cried she, spreading out her arms helplessly. "I can not hew down trees, as my father used; and in all this end of the king's domain there is nothing else to be done. For there are so many shepherds that no more are needed, and so many tillers of the soil that no more can find employment. Ah, I have tried; hut no one wants a weak girl like me."
 * "The Witchcraft of Mary-Marie", in Baum's American Fairy Tales (1908)

 * "But girls often marry when they are too young," exclaimed Mary-Marie quickly; "so, if you don't object to my age — "
 * "The Witchcraft of Mary-Marie", in Baum's American Fairy Tales (1908)

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900)

 * Folklore, legends, myths and fairy tales have followed childhood through the ages, for every healthy youngster has a wholesome and instinctive love for stories fantastic, marvelous and manifestly unreal.
 * Introduction

 * Modern education includes morality; therefore the modern child seeks only entertainment in its wonder-tales and gladly dispenses with all disagreeable incident.
 * Introduction, Chicago, April 1900

 * Dorothy lived in the midst of the great Kansas prairies, with Uncle Henry, who was a farmer, and Aunt Em, who was the farmer's wife.
 * Ch. 1, "The Cyclone"

 * It was Toto that made Dorothy laugh, and saved her from growing as gray as her other surroundings. Toto was not gray; he was a little black dog, with long silky hair and small black eyes that twinkled merrily on either side of his funny, wee nose.

 * "You are welcome, most noble Sorceress, to the land of the Munchkins. We are so grateful to you for having killed the Wicked Witch of the East, and for setting our people free from bondage."

 * Dorothy looked, and gave a little cry of fright. There, indeed, just under the corner of the great beam the house rested on, two feet were sticking out, shod in silver shoes with pointed toes.

 * "There were only four witches in all the Land of Oz, and two of them, those who live in the North and the South, are good witches. I know this is true, for I am one of them myself, and cannot be mistaken. Those who dwelt in the East and the West were, indeed, wicked witches; but now that you have killed one of them, there is but one Wicked Witch in all the Land of Oz — the one who lives in the West."

 * "The road to the City of Emeralds is paved with yellow brick," said the Witch, "so you cannot miss it. When you get to Oz do not be afraid of him, but tell your story and ask him to help you".

"That is because you have no brains" answered the girl. "No matter how dreary and gray our homes are, we people of flesh and blood would rather live there than in any other country, be it ever so beautiful. There is no place like home." The Scarecrow sighed. "Of course I cannot understand it," he said. "If your heads were stuffed with straw, like mine, you would probably all live in the beautiful places, and then Kansas would have no people at all. It is fortunate for Kansas that you have brains."
 * The Scarecrow listened carefully, and said, "I cannot understand why you should wish to leave this beautiful country and go back to the dry, gray place you call Kansas."

 * "It must be inconvenient to be made of flesh," said the Scarecrow thoughtfully, "for you must sleep, and eat and drink. However, you have brains, and it is worth a lot of bother to be able to think properly."

"I shall take the heart," returned the Tin Woodman; "for brains do not make one happy, and happiness is the best thing in the world."
 * "All the same," said the Scarecrow, "I shall ask for brains instead of a heart; for a fool would not know what to do with a heart if he had one."

 * "There is no living thing that is not afraid when it faces danger. The true courage is in facing danger when you are afraid, and that kind of courage you have in plenty."

 * "All the other animals in the forest naturally expect me to be brave, for the Lion is everywhere thought to be the King of Beasts. I learned that if I roared very loudly every living thing was frightened and got out of my way. Whenever I've met a man I've been awfully scared; but I just roared at him, and he has always run away as fast as he could go. If the elephants and the tigers and the bears had ever tried to fight me, I should have run myself — I'm such a coward; but just as soon as they hear me roar they all try to get away from me, and of course I let them go."

"They really are," said the Lion, "but that doesn't make me any braver, and as long as I know myself to be a coward I shall be unhappy."
 * "You will be very welcome," answered Dorothy, "for you will help to keep away the other wild beasts. It seems to me they must be more cowardly than you are if they allow you to scare them so easily."

"You people with hearts," he said, "have something to guide you, and need never do wrong; but I have no heart, and so I must be very careful. When Oz gives me a heart of course I needn't mind so much."
 * The Tin Woodman knew very well he had no heart, and therefore he took great care never to be cruel or unkind to anything.

 * "One of my greatest fears was the Witches, for while I had no magical powers at all I soon found out that the Witches were really able to do wonderful things. There were four of them in this country, and they ruled the people who live in the North and South and East and West. Fortunately, the Witches of the North and South were good, and I knew they would do me no harm; but the Witches of the East and West were terribly wicked, and had they not thought I was more powerful than they themselves, they would surely have destroyed me."

 * "Oh, no, my dear; I'm really a very good man, but I'm a very bad Wizard, I must admit."

"I have always liked you as you were," said Dorothy simply.
 * "Congratulate me. I am going to Oz to get my brains at last. When I return I shall be as other men are."

 * The Scarecrow was now the ruler of the Emerald City, and although he was not a Wizard the people were proud of him. "For," they said, "there is not another city in all the world that is ruled by a stuffed man." And, so far as they knew, they were quite right.

 * "My people have been wearing green glasses on their eyes for so long that most of them think this really is an Emerald City."

 * "I have heard that Glinda is a beautiful woman, who knows how to keep young in spite of the many years she has lived."

 * "The Silver Shoes," said the Good Witch, "have wonderful powers. And one of the most curious things about them is that they can carry you to any place in the world in three steps, and each step will be made in the wink of an eye. All you have to do is to knock the heels together three times and command the shoes to carry you wherever you wish to go."

"My darling child!" she cried, folding the little girl in her arms and covering her face with kisses. "Where in the world did you come from?" "From the Land of Oz," said Dorothy gravely. "And here is Toto, too. And oh, Aunt Em! I'm so glad to be at home again!"
 * Aunt Em had just come out of the house to water the cabbages when she looked up and saw Dorothy running toward her.
 * Closing lines

The Master Key (1901)

'Soon was a world of holy demons made, Aerial spirits, by great Jove designed To be on earth the guardians of mankind.' " "But Jove was himself a myth," objected Rob, who had been studying mythology. The Demon shrugged his shoulders. "Then take the words of Mr. Shakespeare, to whom you all defer," he replied. "Do you not remember that he says: 'Thy demon (that's thy spirit which keeps thee) is Noble, courageous, high, unmatchable.' " "Oh, if Shakespeare says it, that's all right,' answered the boy."
 * If you will take the trouble to consult your dictionary, you will find that demons may be either good or bad, like any other class of beings. Originally all demons were good, yet of late years people have come to consider all demons evil. I do not know why. Should you read Hesiod you will find he says:

 * Familiarity with any great thing removes our awe of it. The great general is only terrible to the enemy; the great poet is frequently scolded by his wife; the children of the great statesman clamber about his knees with perfect trust and impunity; the great actor who is called before the curtain by admiring audiences is often waylaid at the stage door by his creditors.

The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus (1902)
"You must pray to the good Santa Claus for forgiveness. He does not like naughty children, and, unless you repent, he will bring you no more pretty toys." But Santa Claus himself would not have approved this speech. He brought toys to the children because they were little and helpless, and because he loved them. '''He knew that the best of children were sometimes naughty, and that the naughty ones were often good. It is the way with children, the world over, and he would not have changed their natures had he possessed the power to do so.'''
 * And, afterward, when a child was naughty or disobedient, its mother would say:

 * "In all this world there is nothing so beautiful as a happy child," says good old Santa Claus; and if he had his way the children would all be beautiful, for all would be happy.

The Enchanted Island of Yew (1903)

 * "I remember for many, many centuries, my dears [said the fairy]. "I have grown tired of remembering--and of being a fairy continually, without any change to brighten my life."

"To be sure!" said Seseley, with sympathy. "I never thought of fairy life in that way before. It must get to be quite tiresome."

"And think of the centuries I must yet live!" exclaimed the fairy in a dismal voice. "Isn't it an awful thing to look forward to?"

"It is, indeed," agreed Seseley.

"I'd be glad to exchange lives with you," said Helda, looking at the fairy with intense admiration.

"But you can't do that," answered the little creature quickly. "Mortals can't become fairies, you know--although I believe there was once a mortal who was made immortal."

Queen Zixi of Ix (1905)

 * We long for what we cannot have, yet desire it not so much because it would benefit us, as because it is beyond our reach.

The Sea Fairies (1911)

 * "The dying does not amount to much," he [Zog the Sea Monster] said; "it is the thinking about it that hurts you mortals most. I've watched many a shipwreck at sea, and the people would howl and scream for hours before the ship broke up. Their terror was very enjoyable. But when the end came they all drowned as peacefully as if they were going to sleep, so it didn't amuse me at all."

 * "You are a monster and a wicked magician," said the Mermaid Queen. "I am," agreed Zog, "but I cannot help it. I was created part man, part bird, part fish, part beast and part reptile, and such a monstrosity could not be otherwise than wicked."

 * "Well, how do you like him?" asked Sacho, with a laugh. "We hate him!" declared Trot, emphatically. "Of course you do," replied Sacho. "But, you're wasting time hating anything. It doesn't do you any good, or him any harm. Can you sing?" "A little," said Trot; "but I don't feel like singing now." "You're wrong about that," the boy asserted. "Anything that keeps you from singing is foolishness, unless it's laughter. Laughter, joy and song are the only good things in the world."

Sky Island (1912)

 * "They stand you under a big knife, which drops and slices you neatly in two—exactly in the middle. Then they match half of you to another person who has likewise been sliced—and there you are, patched to someone you don't care about and haven't much interest in. If your half wants to do something, the other half is likely to want to do something different, and the funny part of it is you don't quite know which is your half and which is the other half. It's a terrible punishment, and in a country where one can't die or be killed until he has lived his six hundred years, to be patched is a great misfortune."

 * "... The Ruler is the mos' 'risticratic person in any land," explained the little girl. "Even in America ever'body bows low to our President, an' the Blueskins are so 'fraid o' their Boolooroo that they tremble whenever they go near him."

"But surely that is all wrong," said Tourmaline [the Queen of the Pinkies] gravely. "The Ruler is appointed to protect and serve the people, and here in the Pink Country I have the full power to carry out the laws. I even decree death, when such a punishment is merited. Therefore I am a mere agent to direct the laws, which are the Will of the People, and am only a public servant, obliged constantly to guard the welfare of my subjects."

"In that case," said Button-Bright, "you're entitled to the best there is, to pay for your trouble. A powerful ruler ought to be rich and to live in a splendid palace. Your folks ought to treat you with great respect, as Trot says."

"Oh, no," responded Tourmaline quickly; "that would indeed be very wrong. Too much should never be given to anyone. If, with my great power, conferred upon me by the people, I also possessed great wealth, I might be tempted to be cruel and overbearing. In that case my subjects would justly grow envious of my superior station. If I lived as luxuriously as my people do, and had servants and costly gowns, the good Pinkies would say that their Queen had more than they themselves—and it would be true. No; our way is best. The Ruler, be it king or queen, has absolute power to rule, but no riches—no high station—no false adulation. The people have the wealth and honor, for it is their due. The Queen has nothing but the power to execute the laws, to adjust grievances and to compel order."

Later Oz novels

 * Mombi was not exactly a Witch, because the Good Witch who ruled that part of the Land of Oz had forbidden any other Witch to exist in her dominions. So Tip's guardian, however much she might aspire to working magic, realized it was unlawful to be more than a Sorceress, or at most a Wizardess.
 * The Marvelous Land of Oz (1904), Ch. 1 : Tip Manufactures Pumpkinhead

 * I never deal in transformations, for they are not honest, and no respectable sorceress likes to make things appear to be what they are not.
 * The Marvelous Land of Oz (1904)

"Only you're different!" said the Pumpkinhead; and everyone thought it was the wisest speech he had ever made.
 * At this exquisite vision Tip's old comrades stared in wonder for the space of a full minute, and then every head bent low in honest admiration of the lovely Princess Ozma. The girl herself cast one look into Glinda's bright face, which glowed with pleasure and satisfaction, and then turned upon the others. Speaking the words with sweet diffidence, she said: "I hope none of you will care less for me than you did before. I'm just the same Tip, you know; only — only — "
 * The Marvelous Land of Oz (1904)

 * He was only about as tall as Dorothy herself, and his body was round as a ball and made out of burnished copper. Also his head and limbs were copper, and these were jointed or hinged to his body in a peculiar way, with metal caps over the joints, like the armor worn by knights in days of old. He stood perfectly still, and where the light struck upon his form it glittered as if made of pure gold.
 * Ozma of Oz (1907), Ch.4 : Tiktok the Machine Man

 * SMITH & TINKER'S Patent Double-Action, Extra-Responsive, Thought-Creating, Perfect-Talking MECHANICAL MAN Fitted with our Special Clock-Work Attachment. Thinks, Speaks, Acts, and Does Everything but Live. Manufactured only at our Works at Evna, Land of Ev. All infringements will be promptly Prosecuted according to Law.
 * Plate on back of Tik-Tok, in Ozma of Oz (1907), Ch. 4 : Tiktok the Machine Man

 * "Oh! Are you hungry?" she [Dorothy] asked, turning to the other beast, who was just then yawning so widely that he displayed two rows of terrible teeth and a mouth big enough to startle anyone. "Dreadfully hungry," answered the Tiger, snapping his jaws together with a fierce click. "Then why don't you eat something?" she asked. "It's no use," said the Tiger sadly. "I've tried that, but I always get hungry again." "Why, it is the same with me," said Dorothy. "Yet I keep on eating." "But you eat harmless things, so it doesn't matter," replied the Tiger. "For my part, I'm a savage beast, and have an appetite for all sorts of poor little living creatures, from a chipmunk to fat babies." "How dreadful!" said Dorothy. "Isn't it, though?" returned the Hungry Tiger, licking his lips with his long red tongue. "Fat babies! Don't they sound delicious? But I've never eaten any, because my conscience tells me it is wrong. If I had no conscience I would probably eat the babies and then get hungry again, which would mean that I had sacrificed the poor babies for nothing. No; hungry I was born, and hungry I shall die. But I'll not have any cruel deeds on my conscience to be sorry for." "I think you are a very good tiger," said Dorothy, patting the huge head of the beast. "In that you are mistaken," was the reply. "I am a good beast, perhaps, but a disgracefully bad tiger. For it is the nature of tigers to be cruel and ferocious, and in refusing to eat harmless living creatures I am acting as no good tiger has ever before acted."
 * Ozma of Oz Ch. 8 : The Hungry Tiger

 * "Cruelty," remarked the monarch, puffing out wreathes of smoke and watching them float into the air, "is a thing I can't abide. So, as slaves must work hard, and the Queen of Ev and her children were delicate and tender, I transformed them all into articles of ornament and bric-a-brac and scattered them around the various rooms of my palace. Instead of being obliged to labor, they merely decorate my apartments, and I really think I have treated them with great kindness."
 * Ozma of Oz Ch. 11: The Nome King

 * Although this tremendous army consisted of rock-colored Nomes, all squat and fat, they were clothed in glittering armor of polished steel, inlaid with beautiful gems. Upon his brow each wore a brilliant electric light, and they bore sharp spears and swords and battle-axes of solid bronze. It was evident they were perfectly trained, for they stood in straight rows, rank after rank, with their weapons held erect and true, as if awaiting but the word of command to level them upon their foes. "This," said the Nome King, "is but a small part of my army. No ruler upon Earth has ever dared to fight me, and no ruler ever will, for I am too powerful to oppose."
 * Ozma of Oz Ch 11: The Nome King

 * "It seems to me," said the Scarecrow, thoughtfully, "that our best plan is to wheedle his Majesty into giving up his slaves, since he is too great a magician to oppose."

"This is the most sensible thing any of you have suggested," declared the Nome King. "It is folly to threaten me, but I'm so kind-hearted that I cannot stand coaxing or wheedling. If you really wish to accomplish anything by your journey, my dear Ozma, you must coax me."
 * Ozma of Oz Ch 11: The Nome King

 * "I have nine lives," said the kitten, purring softly as it walked around in a circle and then came back to the roof; "but I can't lose even one of them by falling in this country, because I really couldn't manage to fall if I wanted to."
 * Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz (1908), Ch. 2 : The Glass City

 * He told Dorothy he had brushed his shaggy hair and whiskers; but she thought he must have brushed them the wrong way, for they were quite as shaggy as before.
 * The Road to Oz, Ch. 4 : King Dox (1909)

"Why not?" asked the shaggy man. "If we used money to buy things with, instead of love and kindness and the desire to please one another, then we should be no better than the rest of the world," declared the Tin Woodman. "Fortunately money is not known in the Land of Oz at all. We have no rich, and no poor; for what one wishes the others all try to give him, in order to make him happy, and no one in all Oz cares to have more than he can use." "Good!" cried the shaggy man, greatly pleased to hear this. "I also despise money — a man in Butterfield owes me fifteen cents, and I will not take it from him. The Land of Oz is surely the most favored land in all the world, and its people the happiest. I should like to live here always."
 * "Money! Money in Oz!" cried the Tin Woodman. "What a queer idea! Did you suppose we are so vulgar as to use money here?"
 * The Road to Oz (1909)

 * "Oh indeed!" exclaimed the King. Then he turned to his servants and said: "Please take General Crinkle to the torture chamber. There you will kindly slice him into thin slices. Afterward you may feed him to the seven-headed dogs."
 * The Emerald City of Oz (1910), Ch. 4 : How The Nome King Planned Revenge

 * It seems unfortunate that strong people are usually so disagreeable and overbearing that no one cares for them. In fact, to be different from your fellow creatures is always a misfortune. The Growleywogs knew that they were disliked and avoided by every one, so they had become surly and unsociable even among themselves.
 * The Emerald City of Oz

We'll be arrested sure, And get no restitution 'Cause the rest we must endure."
 * "If any of us takes a rest,
 * The Patchwork Girl of Oz (1913), Ch. 6 : The Journey

 * "We consider a prisoner unfortunate. He is unfortunate in two ways — because he has done something wrong and because he is deprived of his liberty. Therefore we should treat him kindly, because of his misfortune, for otherwise he would become hard and bitter and would not be sorry he had done wrong. Ozma thinks that one who has committed a fault did so because he was not strong and brave; therefore she puts him in prison to make him strong and brave. When that is accomplished he is no longer a prisoner, but a good and loyal citizen and everyone is glad that he is now strong enough to resist doing wrong. You see, it is kindness that makes one strong and brave; and so we are kind to our prisoners."
 * The Patchwork Girl of Oz

 * "They tell me meat is going up, but if I can manage to catch you I'm sure it will soon be going down."
 * The Patchwork Girl of Oz (Chapter 20: The Captive Yoop)

 * Electricity was a part of the world from its creation, and therefore my Electra is as old as Daylight or Moonlight, and equally beneficent to mortals and fairies alike.
 * Tik-Tok of Oz (1914)

 * DIRECTIONS FOR USING: For THINKING:--Wind the Clockwork Man under his left arm, (marked No. 1). For SPEAKING:--Wind the Clockwork Man under his right arm, (marked No. 2). For WALKING and ACTION:--Wind Clockwork Man in the middle of his back, (marked No. 3). N. B.--This Mechanism is guaranteed to work perfectly for a thousand years.
 * Tik-Tok of Oz, Ch. 7 : Polychrome's Pitiful Plight
 * Plate on the back of Tik-Tok

 * Ruggedo, having nothing to do, was greatly bored. He sent for the Long-Eared Hearer and asked him to listen carefully and report what was going on in the big world. "It seems," said the Hearer, after listening for a while, "that the women in America have clubs." "Are there spikes in them?" asked Ruggedo, yawning. "I cannot hear any spikes, Your Majesty," was the reply. "Then their clubs are not as good as my sceptre. What else do you hear?" "There's a war." "Bah! there's always a war. What else?"
 * Tiktok of Oz, Ch. 14 : The Long-Eared Hearer Learns by Listening

 * "Seems to me," said Cap'n Bill, as he sat beside Trot under the big acacia tree, looking out over the blue ocean, "seems to me, Trot, as how the more we know, the more we find we don't know." "I can't quite make that out, Cap'n Bill," answered the little girl in a serious voice, after a moment's thought, during which her eyes followed those of the old sailor-man across the glassy surface of the sea. "Seems to me that all we learn is jus' so much gained." "I know; it looks that way at first sight," said the sailor, nodding his head; "but those as knows the least have a habit of thinkin' they know all there is to know, while them as knows the most admits what a turr'ble big world this is. It's the knowing ones that realize one lifetime ain't long enough to git more'n a few dips o' the oars of knowledge."
 * The Scarecrow of Oz

 * "If I'm going to starve, I'll do it all at once—not by degrees."
 * The Scarecrow of Oz

 * "Then he was wrong to have been born at all. Cheek- eek-eek-eek, oo, hoo!" chuckled Rinkitink, his fat body shaking with merriment. "But it's hard to prevent oneself from being born; there's no chance for protest, eh, Bilbil?"
 * Rinkitink of Oz (1916), Ch. 5 : The Three Pearls

 * "Were we all like the Sawhorse, we would all be Sawhorses, which would be too many of the kind. Were we all like Hank, we would be a herd of mules; if like Toto, we would be a pack of dogs; should we all become the shape of the Woozy, he would no longer be remarkable for his unusual appearance. Finally, were you all like me, I would consider you so common that I would not care to associate with you. To be individual, my friends, to be different from others, is the only way to become distinguished from the common herd. Let us be glad, therefore, that we differ from one another in form and in disposition. Variety is the spice of life, and we are various enough to enjoy one another's society; so let us be content."
 * The Lost Princess of Oz (1917)

 * "To be sure. Our throats and stomachs are lined with solid gold, and we find the thistles nourishing and good to eat. As a matter of fact, there is nothing else in our country that is fit for food. All around the City of Thi grow countless thistles, and all we need do is to go and gather them. If we wanted anything else to eat, we would have to plant it, and grow it, and harvest it, and that would be a lot of trouble and make us work, which is an occupation we detest."
 * The Lost Princess of Oz, Ch. 9 : The High Coco-Lorum of Thi

 * A curious thing about Ugu the Shoemaker was that he didn't suspect in the least that he was wicked. He wanted to be powerful and great, and he hoped to make himself master of all the Land of Oz that he might compel everyone in that fairy country to obey him, His ambition blinded him to the rights of others, and he imagined anyone else would act just as he did if anyone else happened to be as clever as himself.
 * The Lost Princess of Oz, Ch. 19: Ugu the Shoemaker

 * "Beautiful things may be admired, if not loved," asserted the Tin Man. "Flowers are beautiful, for instance, but we are not inclined to marry them. Duty, on the contrary, is a bugle call to action, whether you are inclined to act, or not. In this case, I obey the bugle call of duty."
 * The Tin Woodman of Oz (1918), Ch. 2 : The Heart of the Tin Woodman

 * "I think I prefer to be a Bear," said Big Bru. "I was born a Bear, and I know a Bear's ways. So I am satisfied to live as a Bear lives."
 * The Magic of Oz (1919), Ch. 8 : The Li-Mon-Eags Make Trouble

We are sorry he could not stay here and we are sad to tell you this is his last complete story.
 * Mr. Baum did his best to answer all the letters from his small earth-friends before he had to leave them, but he couldn't answer quite all, for there were very many. In May, nineteen hundred nineteen, he went away to take his stories to the little child-souls who had lived here too long ago to read the Oz stories for themselves.
 * Glinda of Oz (1920), Publishers' note announcing Baum's death

 * "Everybody here is a dictator of something or other. They're all office holders. That's what keeps them contented. But I'm the Supreme Dictator of all, and I'm elected once a year. This is a democracy, you know, where the people are allowed to vote for their rulers. A good many others would like to be Supreme Dictator, but as I made a law that I am always to count the votes myself, I am always elected."
 * Glinda of Oz (1920), Ch. 6 : Flathead Mountain

 * "What do you want?" the ape asked at last. "Nothing," said Ervic. "You may have that!" retorted the ape
 * Glinda of Oz Ch. 18 : The Cleverness of Ervic

Novels published under the pseudonym Edith van Dyne

 * In fact, Mr. Watson, it's a queer world, and the longer I live in it the queerer I find it. Once I thought it would be a good idea to regulate things myself and run the world as it ought to be run; but I gave it up long ago. The world's a stage, they say; but the show ain't always amusing, by a long chalk, and sometimes I wish I didn't have a reserved seat.
 * Aunt Jane's Nieces (1906)

 * I think the world is like a great mirror, and reflects our lives just as we ourselves look upon it. Those who turn sad faces toward the world find only sadness reflected. But a smile is reflected in the same way, and cheers and brightens our hearts. You think there is no pleasure to be had in life. That is because you are heartsick and — and tired, as you say. With one sad story ended you are afraid to begin another — a sequel — feeling it would be equally sad. But why should it be? Isn't the joy or sorrow equally divided in life?
 * Aunt Jane’s Nieces and Uncle John (1911)

 * To destroy an offender cannot benefit society so much as to redeem him.
 * The Flying Girl (1911)

 * "They're mostly foreigners, Mr. Merrick, who haven't yet fully mastered the English language. But," he added, thoughtfully, "a few among them might subscribe, if your country sheet contains any news of interest at all. This is rather a lonely place for my men and they get dissatisfied at times. All workmen seem chronically dissatisfied, and their women constantly urge them to rebellion. Already there are grumblings, and they claim they're buried alive in this forlorn forest. Don't appreciate the advantages of country life, you see, and I've an idea they'll begin to desert, pretty soon. Really, a live newspaper might do them good — especially if you print a little socialistic drivel now and then."
 * Aunt Jane's Nieces on Vacation (1912)

Misattributed

 * a heart is not judged by how much you love but by how much you are loved by others
 * this is a line spoken by Frank Morgan's depiction of the Wizard of Oz in the 1939 film, which debuted 20 years after Baum's death. It did not actually appear in the "Wonderful Wizard of Oz". The ending of "Steam Engines of Oz" wrongly attributes this phrase to Baum when it would've originated from the 1939 adaptation script writers Langley/Ryerson/Woolf.

title: L. Frank Baum


text:
Wonderfalls

Wonderfalls (2004) is a comedy-drama television series that was broadcast on the Fox television network. The show centres on Jaye Tyler (Caroline Dhavernas), a recent Brown University graduate with a philosophy degree, who holds a dead-end job as a sales clerk at a Niagara Falls gift shop. Jaye is the reluctant participant in conversations with various animal figurines — a wax lion, brass monkey, stuffed bear, and mounted fish, among others — which direct her via oblique instructions to help people in need.

Theme song

 * "I Wonder Why the Wonder Falls" by Andy Partridge - Wonderfalls Opening Theme - Promotional video

 * We're bobbing along in our barrel. Some of us tip right over the edge. But there's one thing really mystifying It's got me laughing, now it's got me crying All my life I'll be death defying Till I know...

 * I wonder wonder why the wonder falls I wonder why the wonder falls on me I wonder wonder why the wonder falls With everything I touch and hear and see.

 * We teeter along on our tightrope Some of us trip and damage our heads Poppin' pills is really stupefying Get you crawling when you could be flying

 * Don't you ever think about this life And how strange it all can seem? Only way to find the answers out Is to wake up from its golden dream.

 * I've got to find out from where the wonder falls.

Wax Lion [1.1]

 * Full episode at YouTube

 * Gretchen: Did you end up over-educated and unemployable like you said in the yearbook?
 * Jaye: Yep.

 * Sharon: You tell people we're not related.
 * Jaye: It was just that one time.
 * Sharon: It was Grandpa's wake!

 * Mahandra: Disappointing your family is an extreme sport for you.

 * Eric: Why do they always sacrifice the pretty ones?
 * Jaye: I guess killing pretty people is easier than killing ugly people. Although, you'd think the opposite would be true.

 * [Jaye picks a quarter out of the fountain]
 * Girl: You're not supposed to steal!
 * Jaye: You're not supposed to talk to strangers. Piss off!

 * Jaye: Your voice just got loud.

Pink Flamingos [1.2]

 * Jaye: Eric can't talk right now, because he's servicing me sexually.

 * Jaye: I don't have a choice. I'm a puppet. The universe sticks its hand up my butt, and if I don't dance people get hurt.

 * Mahandra: I've got my own list of things to do. And at the top of it: destroy Gretchen Speck. You may be the universe's butt puppet, but I'm its right-hand fist of fate. And tonight, accounts are comin' due.

 * Karen: Honey, you should go in there.
 * Jaye: Me?
 * Karen: Otherwise, I'll have to.

 * Eric: So, did you defy the chicken?
 * Jaye: Uh-huh.
 * Eric: And how'd that work out for ya?
 * Jaye: I think I may have killed a man.
 * Eric: Oh. So not as well as we'd hoped then?

Karma Chameleon [1.3]

 * Bianca: [to store customers] Come again!
 * Jaye: Don't encourage them.

 * Bianca: I thought I saw those motion lamps in the back.
 * Jaye: Exactly, in the back, up on a high shelf. If one of us were to fall it would affect workers comp rates, we're not only protecting our employer... but small businesses everywhere.

 * Jaye: You've gotta choose people who aren't much more motivated than you are — but don't surround yourself with total narcissists. Otherwise, things start to be about something other than you.

 * Bianca: Your home is a trailer. Don't you see the beautiful poetry in that? It's a thing that's been designed to go someplace, and yet the hitch isn't hooked up to anything. So it just sits here, never living up to its potential... but never in any danger of breaking down either.

 * Jaye: I should have tossed her out on her buh-buh-butt!

 * Jaye: A brother who lives at home, and is still considered more successful than I am, which could be because I live in a trailer that, while it may look like Jeannie's bottle, is actually slightly smaller.

Wound-Up Penguin [1.4]

 * Jaye: What do you get off brow-beating a hooker? Jesus was nice to prostitutes.

 * Eric: The man, do you remember what he looked like?
 * Janitor: Strange looking sort.  Dressed in all black.  I remember thinking that if Johnny Cash had been born an Irishman, the music would have been more lilting.

 * Jaye: If you were so happy with the sisters in the field, why did you leave?
 * Katrina: It was the cheese.  The cheese was my undoing.  [indicating her plate] This is the miracle of life melted over these chili fries.  The bacterial flirtation with enzymes.  The co-mingling of friendly micro-organisms giving birth to curds and whey, "And from dust He created the universe."
 * Jaye: The dairy-board must love you.

 * Jaye: Yes, but maybe she's just a lazy whore. That happens, right? They can't all have hearts of gold and good work ethics.

 * Jaye: The voices, the animals, I was just mad at them.  But they aren’t demonic.  It just feels like that sometimes when they make me help people.

Crime Dog [1.5]

 * Karen: Sharon, go talk to your father. You're his favorite.
 * [Sharon leaves the kitchen]
 * Aaron: I thought I was his favorite.
 * Karen: We don't have favorites.

 * Aaron: Oh my God, that guy just blew his nose on the ground. I thought Canadians were supposed to be clean.
 * Jaye: Just don't make eye contact.

 * Jaye: Well, if it isn't the squealer. Thanks for squealing, squealer.
 * Sharon: How am I a squealer?
 * Jaye: Uh, could it be the squealing? You ambushed us with the fuzz.  You were all back-lit and evil-smoking like that guy on the X-Files.

 * Officer Hale: The blonde one's queer. Look at her.  Those fingernails are a dead giveaway.  Cut all nice and short.  Clean cuticle beds.  Lesbians always trim their nails like that.  You know why?

 * Jaye: Just try to get Aaron out.
 * Sharon: He's already out
 * Jaye: Bastard! He sang?
 * Sharon: No, you admitted to driving the car.
 * Jaye: Oohh, I sang...
 * Sharon: There are like six Law & Orders on the air now, have you not seen one of them?

Muffin Buffalo [1.6]

 * Aaron: If your portly chupacabra doesn’t emerge soon I’ll be forced to go home and work on my dissertation.
 * Jaye: I don’t call him that anymore.  He might be of Mexican descent and I don’t want to be insensitive.
 * Aaron: What do you call him?
 * Jaye: Fat Pat.  It was Fatsquatch but... [shrugs]

 * Jaye: I do admit the whole shut-in thing has a certain appeal.  Dress is optional, and there’s the part where you get to avoid people.

 * Jaye: [wandering the deserted trailer park] Did we have a Rapture?

 * Aaron: There’s something out there and it’s laughing at us.
 * Darrin: I don’t think your sister’s special lunch is an appropriate place for an existential crisis.
 * Aaron: It’s not an existential crisis.
 * Karen: You’re studying religion for God’s sake, you were bound to have one sooner or later.
 * Aaron: I’m not in existential crisis! Just the opposite.  I was fine when existence had no meaning. Meaninglessness in a universe that has no meaning — that I get.  But meaninglessness in a universe that has meaning... what does it mean?
 * Jaye: It doesn't mean anything.
 * Aaron: Did the cow creamer tell you that?
 * Karen: I’m throwing that creamer away the second we get home.

 * Jaye: You lost 300 pounds; you can’t just gain it all back!
 * Marianne Marie: Well Sieg Heil, Miss Jenny Craig!

Barrel Bear [1.7]

 * [Millie is sitting at the autograph-signing table and is being ignored.]
 * Mahandra: This is sad.  This is sadder than that hooker we saw getting beat up by that other hooker.
 * Alec: At least a hooker fight would draw a crowd.

 * Jaye: [to Sharon] How long have you been using the Republican party as a lesbian dating service?

 * Viv: I was supposed to ride that barrel right out of this crummy town.
 * Jaye: And you never considered a bus?

 * Mahandra: ...the story of Millie Marcus and her barrel.
 * Eric: It is sort of the quintessential American tale.
 * Mahandra: Yes!  It teaches us there's nothing a person can’t do.
 * Eric: Or nothing a person actually has to do. I mean look at her, she’s 100% fabrication. She decided what she wanted to be and damn the facts. You don’t get much more American than that.

 * Jaye: Look at me:  I’m 24 and I’ve never done anything.  I have a worthless philosophy degree that's gotten me no further than a dead-end retail job working for a mouth-breather so I can continue to support my trailer park lifestyle.  Do you think I sit around feeling sorry for myself?
 * Viv: God, I would if I were you.

Lovesick Ass [1.8]

 * Lovesick Ass: Girl needs a—
 * Jaye: Girl might actually find time to have a boy if you'd ever shut up!
 * Lovesick Ass: ...donut. Girl needs a donut.
 * Jaye: Finally, something sensible.

 * [Playing with the Wax Lion and Brass Monkey]
 * Mahandra [as Wax Lion as Jaye]: Your man-sweat is like honey-mustard glaze on my tongue.
 * Brass Monkey: Inappropriate touching.
 * Wax Lion: This isn't fun for anybody.

 * Jaye: It's impossible you could've liked any of your three portions. It's fish jello!  You do realize that's jello and fish?

 * Peter: With eyes that beautiful, how can you be so blind?

 * Peter: He wants you all to himself. He won't share you with anyone. You're in danger. He's dangerous. I saw him smoking a cigarette.
 * Jaye: He doesn't smoke. He doesn't hit people.  He doesn't deface synogogues and he doesn't frequent gay bath houses.
 * Peter: I have pictures.
 * Jaye: You have photo-imaging software!
 * Peter: I'm only trying to protect you. Come with me to the cabin. I'll keep you safe. We have a cellar.

 * Eric: You know, even if you got rid of me, you'd still be left with the biggest obstacle to Jaye's heart.
 * Peter: What's that?
 * Eric: Jaye.

Safety Canary [1.9]

 * Rufus: You know what happens when a fairy's wings lose their dust?  The fairy dies, that's what.
 * Jaye: Uh, restrooms are for customers only.

 * Penelope: We answer to a higher law.
 * Eric: We do?
 * Jaye: Love.  Love is our higher law.  And we're here to save it.  Not that it was ever in any danger.  From me.

 * Aaron: I wanna see an engorged cloaca!
 * Penelope: You can't.  I told you, your powerful sexual chemistry is too distracting.
 * Aaron: I get that a lot, actually.

 * Jaye: I'm trying to save him.  By avoiding him.  So I can be with him.  But I can't go near him or I'll destroy him, so if I can just manage to stay away from him maybe we can be together.  Please don't repeat that back to me.

 * Jaye: I've never seen anyone work so hard to get someone else laid in my entire life. You are like the total mac daddy bird pimp.

Lying Pig [1.10]

 * Heidi: You hit me with a television!
 * Jaye: It was a portable!

 * Jaye: Fine, I'm the crazy one... but I had the snake!
 * Heidi: Well, it's my snake and I want it back.
 * [Jaye looks puzzled]
 * Heidi: The snake... that's a penis reference, right?
 * Jaye: No, God! With a mind that works like that no wonder you cheated on your honeymoon.

 * Mahandra: Alright, what're we drinking to?
 * Eric: How about crazy women and losers who love them.
 * Mahandra: You are not a loser. She is your wife. You don't just stop loving her because...
 * Eric: I am not talking about Heidi.
 * Mahandra: Uh... wow, really? [Eric gave her a convincing look] You love her? [another look from Eric] well, then you have to tell her.
 * Eric: Not until she tells me.
 * Mahandra: Now you're playing chicken. She has to say it first?
 * Eric: Not it, but something, anything. I just need a word. One word, so I'd know I am not the only one feeling this. But she can't say it and I don't know why.

 * Mahandra: You're like a brother to me.
 * Aaron: So, I make love like a black man?
 * Mahandra: Not that kind of brother, you idiot!

 * Mahandra: Nobody can hurt by just admitting how they feel.
 * Jaye: I think I might love him. Uhh. See that, it hurt.

Cocktail Bunny [1.11]

 * Jaye: [to melted Wax Lion] Tell me why. Why make me make the man I love re-marry his hussy bride?  How is that helpful?  Who does that benefit besides the hussy, 'cause I'm not in the business of benefitting hussies.

 * Heidi: [to Jaye] We're both reasonable women.
 * Mahandra: Ha!
 * Heidi: We're both capable of reason.

 * Jaye: Of course she's not pressing charges.  Murderers don't press charges.  It calls unwanted attention to themselves.

 * Brass Monkey: Lick the light-switch.

 * Jaye: [to Brass Monkey] Tell me why you talk to me!
 * Brass Monkey: Because... you listen.

Totem Mole [1.12]

 * Jaye: I couldn’t stand the thought of spending another day looking at those faces with their stupid little mouths constantly running and making all sorts of unreasonable demands on me.
 * Mahandra: Are you sure you should be in a customer service industry?

 * Aaron: St. Paul was just a punk until he was blinded by the light, and Gandhi was just drinking and whoring it up with his friends until he heard the cry of his people.
 * Jaye: And Neo was just a geek until he swallowed that little red pill.

 * Bill: Thank you for supporting this imperialist establishment. Enjoy your purchase and have a racist day!

 * Bill: They really look up to me!
 * Jaye: Yeah, you made them sit down.

 * Sharon: Behind this door is one very dehydrated, very angry, and very litigious woman! Pry, man!  Pry!

Caged Bird [1.13]

 * Caged Bird: Let him go!

 * Wade: Is this one of those stores that gives its employees a cash bonus when they apprehend a shoplifter?
 * Jaye: Ten percent of whatever they were gonna steal!  One time I accidentally left the watch case open and I got, like, 500 bucks.

 * Jaye: I make good life choices — mostly because they’re forced on me — but I make them, and I find myself in unpleasant situations all the time.  You know why?  Because even if you have a choice it can and will be taken away from you.  We’re all fate’s bitch.  You might as well go ahead and bend over for destiny now.

 * Alec: No!  Please, don’t kill me!  I can’t die!  I’ve never been with a woman!
 * Bank robber: [to Sharon] You...
 * Sharon: I have been with a woman!

 * [Eric is holding a bag full of Wonderfalls souvenirs.]
 * Eric: I'd like to return these items.
 * Jaye: Did they break?  'Cause we sell a lot of crap here.

Cast

 * Caroline Dhavernas - Jaye Tyler
 * Katie Finneran - Sharon Tyler
 * Tyron Leitso - Eric Gotts
 * William Sadler - Darrin Tyler
 * Diana Scarwid - Karen Tyler
 * Lee Pace - Aaron Tyler
 * Tracie Thoms - Mahandra McGinty

title: Wonderfalls


text:
Caroline Dhavernas

Caroline Dhavernas (born 15 May 1978) is a Canadian actress, famous in the United States as "Jaye" from the short-lived television series Wonderfalls, and as "Dr. Alana Bloom" in the psychological horror drama Hannibal.

Quotes

 * People have told me it's like Touched by an Angel on acid. I think that's a good description.
 * On Wonderfalls in "Caroline Dhavernas works magic" by Olivia Barker at USA Today (9 March 2004)

 * Most reporters I've spoken with want very badly to understand what is happening to her, but the "why" is really very unimportant. That is just not the point of the show. The journey is how she will deal with this situation, and how it will change her life.
 * About her character on Wonderfalls, in "'Wonderfalls' Spills Torrent of Wit" by John Crooks at Zap2it.com (2004)

title: Caroline Dhavernas


text:
Chuck Palahniuk

Charles Michael "Chuck" Palahniuk (born February 21, 1962) is an American satirical novelist and freelance journalist.

Quotes

 * I think they've always gone on. I've gotten some irate letters from oldsters saying "We did this in the 1930s. You didn't invent anything." And I'm like, "Gramps, you should have put a name on it and sold it, because that’s all I did."
 * On the creation of Fight Club
 * Interview with Rolling Stone (2002-09-19)

 * I haven't had a TV in 10 years, and I really don't miss it. 'Cause it's always so much more fun to be with people than it ever was to be with a television.
 * Interview with the San Francisco Bay Guardian (2002-10-30)

 * It's easy to attack and destroy an act of creation. It's a lot more difficult to perform one.
 * Salon.com Letters. Response by Palahniuk to Laura Miller's review. (2003-08-26)

 * Why have I sold out? You think I'm supposed to grow old, beating some trite old protest drum that people don't hear anymore? Please; protest is now just a backdrop for a Diesel clothing ad in a slick fashion magazine. My goal is to create a metaphor that changes our reality by charming people into considering their world in a different way. It's time — for me, at least — to be clever and seduce people by entertaining them. I'll never be heard if I'm always ranting and griping.
 * "You Ask The Questions," The Independent Review (2004-03-25)

 * How sweet! You still believe in death... that's just so... quaint. Well, sorry to pop your death bubble, but there's no such thing. So make the best of things. Any real belief in death is just wishful thinking. Don't waste good drugs on killing yourself. Share them with friends and have a party. Or send them to me.
 * "You Ask The Questions," The Independent Review (2004-03-25)

 * The first step — especially for young people with energy and drive and talent, but not money — the first step to controlling your world is to control your culture. To model and demonstrate the kind of world you demand to live in. To write the books. Make the music. Shoot the films. Paint the art.
 * Closing remarks made on an eClass forum (Barnes & Noble University) (2004-12-05)

 * I love being with people. But I need a script, a role, something that will help me overcome my fears of rejection and shame. Most religions and belief systems provide a blueprint for some sort of community. And the religion's leaders model a way of being. For example, in my book Choke, a character enacts his own death and resurrection every night – as does the narrator in Fight Club. Here's Jesus, allowing himself to look terrible in front of his peers. That's the biggest purpose of religious gathering: permission to look terrible in public.
 * Quoted in Andrew Lawless, "Those burnt tongue moments - Chuck Palahniuk in interview", Three Monkeys (May 2005)

 * All I do is track a profane route to something (I hope) profound. Like swimming a river of shit for a kiss.
 * On what sets him apart from others in his genre.
 * Online chat transcript, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (2007-05-01)

 * If we can forgive what's been done to us... If we can forgive what we've done to others... If we can leave our stories behind. Our being victims and villains. Only then can we maybe rescue the world.
 * Haunted (2005), Chapter 21

 * Going to spring break at Ft. Lauderdale, getting drunk and flashing your breasts isn't an act of personal empowerment. It's you, so fashioned and programmed by the construct of a patriarchal society that you no longer know what's best for yourself. A damsel too dumb to know she is even in distress.
 * Snuff (2008)

 * The things you own end up owning you. It's only after you lose everything that you're free to do anything.
 * Fight Club

Lullaby (2002)

 * The problem with every story is you tell it after the fact. Every play-by-play description on the radio, the home runs and strikeouts, even that's delayed a few minutes. Even live television is postponed a couple seconds. Even Sound and light can only go so fast.
 * Chapter 1
 * The muffled thunder of dialogue comes through the walls, then a chorus of laughter. Then more thunder. Most of the laugh tracks on television were recorded in the early 1950s. These days, most of the people you hear laughing are dead.
 * Chapter 3
 * You turn up your music to hide the noise. Other people turn up their music to hide yours. You turn up yours again. Everyone buys a bigger stereo system. This is the arms race of sound You don't win with a lot of treble. This isn't about quality. It's about volume. This isn't about music. This is about winning. You stomp the competition with the bass line. You rattle windows. You drop the melody line, and shout the lyrics. You put in foul language and come down hard on each cussword. You dominate. This is really about power.
 * Chapter 3
 * These people so scared of silence. These are my neighbors. These sound-oholics. These quiet-ophobics.
 * Chapter 3
 * We come from a generation of people who need their TV or stereo playing all the time. These people so scared of silence. These soundaholics, these quietophobics.
 * Chapter 3
 * No one wants to admit we're addicted to music. That's just not possible. No one's addicted to music and television and radio. We just need more of it, more channels, a larger screen, more volume. We can't bear to be without it, but no, nobody's addicted. We could turn it off anytime we wanted. I fit a window frame into a brick wall. With a little brush, the size for fingernail polish, I glue it. The window is the size of a fingernail. The glue smells like hair spray. The smell tastes like oranges and gasoline
 * Chapter 3

 * No detail is too minor to note.
 * Anymore, no one's mind is their own. You can't concentrate. You can't think. There's always some noise worming in. Singers shouting. Dead people laughing. Actors crying. All these little doses of emotion. Someone's always spraying the air with their mood.
 * Chapter 3

 * There are worse things than finding your wife and child dead. You can watch the world do it. You can watch your wife get old and bored. You can watch your kids discover everything in the world you've tried to save them from. Drugs, divorce, conformity, disease. All the nice clean books, music, television. Distraction. These people with dead children, you want to tell them, go ahead. Blame yourself. There are worse things you can do to the people you love than kill them. The regular way is just to watch the world do it. Just read the newspaper.
 * Chapter 3

 * Old George Orwell got it backward. Big Brother isn't watching. He's singing and dancing. He's pulling rabbits out of a hat. Big Brother's busy holding your attention every moment you're awake. He's making sure you're always distracted. He's making sure you're fully absorbed. He's making sure your imagination withers. Until it's as useful as your appendix. He's making sure your attention is always filled. And this being fed, it's worse than being watched. With the world always filling you, no one has to worry about what's in your mind. With everyone's imagination atrophied, no one will ever be a threat to the world.
 * Chapter 3

 * When ancient Greeks had a thought, it occurred to them as a god or goddess giving an order. Apollo was telling them to be brave. Athena was telling them to fall in love. Now people hear a commercial for sour cream potato chips and rush out to buy them, but now they call this free will. At least the Greeks were being honest.
 * Chapter 3

 * The trick to forgetting the big picture is to look at everything close-up.
 * Chapter 3

 * In journalism school, what they want you to be is a camera. A trained, objective, detached professional. Accurate, polished, and observant. They want you to believe that the new and you are always two separate things. Killers and reporters are mutually exclusive. Whatever the story, this isn't about you.

 * You don't become a journalist because you're good at keeping secrets. Being a Journalist is about telling. It's about bearing the bad news. Spreading the contagion. The biggest story in history. This could be the end of mass media. The Culling song would be a plague unique to the Information Age. Imagine a world where people shun the television, the radio, movies, the Internet, magazines, and newspapers. People have to wear earplugs the way they wear condoms and rubber gloves. In the past, nobody worried too much about sex with strangers. Or before that, bites from fleas. Or untreated drinking water. Mosquitoes. Asbestos.
 * Chapter 7
 * Imagine the books burning. And tapes and films and files, radios and televisions, will all go into that same bonfire. All those libraries and bookstores blazing away in the night. People will attack microwave relay stations. People with axes will chop every fiber-optic cable.
 * Chapter 7
 * Power corrupts. And absolute power corrupts absolutely. So just relax, Helen Boyle told me, and just enjoy the ride. She said, "Even absolute corruption has its perks.
 * Chapter 9
 * Our footsteps echo against the concrete floor. The steel roof hums with rain. And she says, 'Don't you feel, somehow, buried in history?'
 * Chapter 10
 * These distraction-oholics. These focus-ophobics."
 * Chapter 14
 * Sticks and stones may break your bones but words can hurt like hell.
 * Chapter 14
 * Here's Big Brother, singing and dancing, force-feeding you, so your mind never goes hungry enough to think.
 * Chapter 14
 * Until you deal with your real personal issues, you'll never be able to control yourself.
 * Chapter 14
 * Down through the ceiling comes a fire siren and people screaming that we're supposed to ignore. The gunshots and tires squeeling, sounds wee have to pretend are okay. They don't mean anything. It's just television. An explosion vibrates down from the upstairs. A woman begs someone not to rape her. It's not real. It's just a movie. We're the culture that cried wolf.
 * Chapter 17

 * "When you think about it from a native plant perspective," Oyster says."Johnny Apple seed was a fucking biological terrorist."
 * Chapter 19

 * The way you can go to Paris or Beijing, Oyster says, and everywhere there's a McDonald's hamburger, this is the ecological equivalent of franchised life-forms. Every place is the same place. Kudzu. Zebra mussels. Water hyacinths. Starlings. Burger Kings. The local natives, anything unique gets squeezed out.. He says, "We're landscaping the whole world one stupid mistake at a time."
 * Chapter 19

After long enough, everyone in the world will be your enemy. '''With every crime, Mona says, you're more and more alienated from the world. More and more, you imagine the whole world is against you.''' And maybe it was after years and years of getting the same calls about unwanted pregnancies, about divorces, about family squabbles. Maybe it was because her audience grew and her show moved to prime time. Maybe it was the more money she earned. Maybe power corrupts, but she wasn't always a bitch.
 * Sure, everybody wants to play God, but for me it's a full-time job.
 * Chapter 20
 * According to Mona, you shouldn't kill people, because that drives you away from humanity. In order to justify killing, you have to make the victim your enemy. To justify any crime, you have to make the victim your enemy.
 * Chapter 22
 * Doctor Sarah didn't start out by attacking and berating everybody who called her radio show," Mona says. "She used to have a little time slot and a little audience, and she seemed to really care about helping people."
 * Chapter 22
 * Still, he deserved to die. He called me an asshole.
 * Chapter 22
 * Centuries ago, sailors on long voyages used to leave a pair of pigs on every deserted island. Or they'd leave a pair of goats. Either way, on any future visit, the island would be a source of meat. These islands, they were pristine. These were home to breeds of birds with no natural predators. Breeds of birds that lived nowhere else on earth. The plants there, without enemies they evolved without thorns or poisons. Without predators and enemies, these islands, they were paradise. The sailors, the next time they visited these islands, the only things still there would be herds of goats or pigs. .... Does this remind you of anything? Maybe the ol' Adam and Eve story? .... You ever wonder when God's coming back with a lot of barbecue sauce?
 * Chapter 23
 * The masochist bullies the sadist into action. The most passive person is actually an aggressor. Every day, just you living means the misery and death of plants and animals- and even some people. "Slaughterhouses, factory farms, sweatshops," she says, "like it or not, that's what your money buys."
 * In order to save the world, Jesus Christ suffered for about thirty-six hours on the cross. I am willing to suffer an eternity in hell for the same cause.
 * Chapter 26

 * Every generation wants to be the last. Every generation hates the next trend in music they can't understand. We hate to give up the reins of our culture. To find our own music playing in elevators. The ballad for our revolution, turned into background music for a television commercial. To find our generation's clothes and hair suddenly retro.
 * Chapter 26
 * Maybe you don't go to hell for the things you do. Maybe you go to hell for the things you don't do.
 * Chapter 28
 * History is is filled with brilliant people who wanted to fix things and just made them worse.
 * Chapter 39
 * I need to rebel against myself. It's the opposite of following your bliss. I need to do what I most fear.
 * Chapter 39

 * The trick to forgetting the big picture is to look at everything close-up.
 * The more people die, the more things stay the same.
 * Imagine immortality, where even a marriage of fifty years would feel like a one-night stand. Imagine seeing trends and fashions blur past you. Imagine the world more crowded and desperate every century. Imagine changing religions, homes, diets, careers, until none of them have any real value.Imagine traveling the world until you're bored with every square inch. Imagine your emotions, your loves and hates and rivalries and victories, played out again and again until life is nothing more than a melo-dramatic soap opera. Until you regard the birth and death of other people with no more emotion than the wilted cut flowers you throw away.

 * Maybe this is why so many serial killers work in pairs. It's nice not to feel alone in a world full of victims or enemies.

 * Sticks and stones will break your bones, but now words can kill, too.This is how we must look to God. As if everything's just fine.

 * This culling poem is a blessing. Why do you think it was created in the first place? It will save millions of people from the slow terrible death we're headed for from disease, from famine, drought, from solar radiation, from war, from all the places we're headed.

 * "The best way to waste your life is by taking notes. The easiest way to avoid living is to just watch.

 * Either an ancient cursed Egyptian mummy has come back to life and is trying to kill the people next door, or they're watching a movie.

Stranger Than Fiction: True Stories (2004)

 * If you haven’t already noticed, all my books are about a lonely person looking for some way to connect with other people. In a way, that is the opposite of the American Dream: to get so rich you can rise above the rabble, all those people on the freeway or, worse, the bus.

 * The journalist researches a story. The novelist imagines it. What’s funny is, you’d be amazed at the amount of time a novelist has to spend with people in order to create this single lonely voice. This seemingly isolated world. It’s hard to call any of my novels “fiction.”

 * All my friends with PalmPilots and cell phones, they're always calling themselves and leaving reminders to themselves about what's about to happen. We leave Post-it notes for ourselves. We go to that shop in the mall, the one where they engrave whatever shit you want on a silver-plated box or a fountain pen, and we get a reminder for every special event that life goes by too fast for us to remember. We buy those picture frames where you record a message on a sound chip. We videotape everything! Oh, and now there's those digital cameras, so we can all email around our photos — this century's equivalent of the boring vacation slide show. We organize and reorganize. We record and archive.

 * Everything is funnier in retrospect, funnier and prettier and cooler. You can laugh at anything from far enough away.

Haunted (2005)

 * People in France have a phrase: "Spirit of the Stairway." In French: esprit d'Escalier. It means that moment when you find the answer but it's too late. So you're at a party and someone insults you. You have to say something. So, under pressure, with everybody watching, you say something lame. But the moment you leave the party...As you start down the stairway, then - magic. You come up with the perfect thing you should've said. The perfect crippling put down. That's the Spirit of the Stairway. The trouble is, even the French don't have a phrase for the stupid things you actually do say under pressure. Those stupid, desperate things you actually think or do.
 * Chapter One, Guts
 * "To create a race of masters from a race of slaves, Mr. Whittier said, to teach a controlled group of how to create their own lives, Moses had to be an asshole."
 * Chapter 3
 * "It's not a matter of right and wrong," Mr. Whittier would say. Really, there is no wrong. Not in our minds. Our own reality. You can never set off to do the wrong thing. You can never say the wrong thing. In your own mind, you are always right. Every action you take--what you do or say or how you choose to appear--is automatically right the moment you act.
 * Chapter 4
 * What you have to love about drinking is, every swallow is an irrevocable decision. You charging ahead, in control of the game. It's the same with pills, sedatives and painkillers, every swallow is a first definite step down some road.
 * Chapter 4, Slumming by Lady Baglady
 * Stink for privacy, the new way to protect personal space. Intimidation by odor.
 * Chapter 4, Slumming by Lady Baglady
 * "A journalist has a right... ...and a duty, to destroy the golden calves he helps create."
 * Chapter 5, Trade Secrets, A Poem About the Earl of Slander
 * "You are permanent, but this life is not," Mr. Whittier would say. "You don't expect to visit an amusement park, then stay forever."
 * Chapter 6
 * The earth, he'd say, is just a big machine. A big processing plant. A factory. That's your big answer. The big truth. Think of a rock polisher, one of those drums, goes round and round, rolls twenty-four/seven, full of water and rocks and gravel. Grinding it all up. Round and round. Polishing those ugly rocks into gemstones. That's the earth. Why it goes round. We're the rocks. And what happens to us--the drama and pain and joy and war and sickness and victory and abuse--why, that's just the water and sand to erode us. Grind us down. To polish us up, nice and bright.
 * Chapter 6
 * In the big factory of perfecting human souls, the Earth was a kind of tumbler. The same as the kind people use to polish rocks. All souls come here to rub the sharp edges off each other. All of us, we're meant to be worn smooth by conflict and pain of every kind. To be polished. There was nothing bad about this. This wasn't suffering. It was erosion. It was just another, a basic, an important step in the refining process.
 * Chapter 6

 * "Every apostle or disciple," Mrs. Clarke says, "as much as they're running to follow their savior-they're running just as hard to escape something else."
 * Chapter 8

 * For the rest of history, all over the world, people will be trying to save this same dead woman. This woman who just wanted to die.
 * Chapter 9, Exodus

 * You can't unfuck a kid. Once you fuck a kid, you can't get that genie back in the bottle.
 * Chapter 9, Exodus

 * This is just what human beings do-turn objects into people, people into objects. Back and forth. Tit for tat.
 * Chapter 9, Exodus

 * As a fundraiser, our first idea was 'Five Bucks to Punch a Mime.'
 * Chapter 10, Punch Drunk

 * "Yes, terrible things happen, but sometimes those terrible things- they save you." p205
 * Chapter 11, Ritual

 * "What matters," Sister Vigilante says, "is, people need a monster they can believe in." A true horrible enemy. A demon to define themselves against. Otherwise, it's just us versus us.
 * Chapter 13, Civil Twilight
 * With the angel of death going door to door, people stayed together. They quit bitching and behaved.
 * Chapter 13, Civil Twilight
 * I lost my virginity through my ear.
 * Chapter 15, Anticipation

''For making us short. Fat. Poor.''
 * The whole idea of men creating perfect robot women for their own pleasure, it happens every day. The most "beautiful" women you see in public, none of them are for real. They're just men perpetuating their perverted stereotypes of women. Just the oldest story in the world. There's a penis on every page of Cosmopolitan magazine if you know where to look.
 * Chapter 15, Speaking Bitterness, A Story by Comrade Snarky
 * "We should forgive God..."

''We should forgive God for our baldness. Our cystic fibrosis. Our juvenile leukemia.''

We should forgive God's indifference, His leaving us behind:

Us, God's forgotten Science Fair project, left to grow mold.

God's goldfish, ignored until we're forced to eat our own shit off the bottom.
 * Chapter 19, Absolution

 * That's how a scary story works. It echoes some ancient fear. It recreates some forgotten terror. Something we'd like to think we're grown beyond. But it can still scare us to tears. It's something you'd hoped was healed.
 * Chapter 19, Hot Potting, A story by Baroness Frostbite
 * If there's a trick to doing a job you hate... Mrs. Clark says it's to find a job you hate even more.
 * Chapter 20, Cassandra, Another story by Mrs. Clarke

 * We love drama. We love conflict. We need a devil or we'll create one.

 * Chapter 20, Cassandra, Another story by Mrs. Clarke

 * "Telling a story is how we digest what happens to us," Mr Whittier says, "It's how we digest our lives. Our experiences."
 * Chapter 21
 * If we can forgive what's been done to us... If we can forgive what we've done to others... If we can leave our stories behind. Our being victims and villains. Only then can we maybe rescue the world.
 * Chapter 21

 * "I used to think the secret to a happy ending was to bring down the curtain at the exact right time. A moment after happiness, then everything's all wrong again." p76

 * "The difference between how you look and how you see yourself is enough to kill most people. And maybe the reason vampires don’t die is because they can never see themselves in photographs or mirrors." p144
 * People fall so in love with their pain, they can't leave it behind. The same as the stories they tell. We trap ourselves.

 * Some stories, Mr.Whitter would say, you tell them and you use them up. Other stories, they use you up. p288
 * Some stories, you use up. Others use you up.
 * The difference between how you look and how you see yourself is enough to kill most people. And maybe the reason vampires don't die is because they can never see themselves in photographs or mirrors.
 * The world will always punish the few people with special talents the rest of us don't recognize as real.
 * A book is as private and consensual as sex.
 * Leather shoes and fried chicken and dead soldiers are only a tragedy if you waste their gift sitting in front of the television. Or stuck in traffic. Or stranded at some airport.
 * That's the American Dream: to make your life into something you can sell.

 * Their teeth white, as if they never used teeth for anything except to smile.

 * Some stories, she'd say, the more you tell them, the faster you use them up. Those kind, the drama burns off, and every version, they sound more silly and flat. The other kind of story, it uses you up. The more you tell it, the stronger it gets. Those kind of stories only remind you how stupid you were. Are. Will always be.

 * I used to think the secret to a happy ending was to bring down the curtain at the exact right time. A moment after happiness, then everything's all wrong, again.

 * "Until you can ignore your circumstances, and just do as you promise," he says, "you'll always be controlled by the world."

 * You will always have some excuse not to live your life.

 * Her dress, swimsuit-tight, leotard-tight, her pantyhose run with women pedaling bicycles going nowhere at a thousand calories an hour.

Damned (2011)

 * What makes earth feel like Hell is our expectation that it should feel like Heaven.

 * If you can watch much television, then being dead will be a cinch. Actually, watching television and surfing the Internet are really excellent practice for being dead.

 * The first time we meet another person an insidious little voice in our head says, 'I might wear eyeglasses or be chunky around the hips or a girl, but at least I'm not Gay or Black or a Jew.' Meaning: I may be me - but at least I have the good sense not to be YOU.

 * It simply makes sense that I should miss my parents more than they miss me, especially when you consider that they only loved me for thirteen years while I loved them my entire life.

 * In Hell you'd be foolish to count on people displaying high standards of honesty. The same goes for earth.

 * Yes, and I know that when a supersexy older girl with hips and breasts and nice hair wants to take off your glasses and to paint you a smokey eye she's merely trying to enroll you in a beauty contest she's already won. It's the kind of slummy, condescending gesture, like when rich people ask poor people where they summer. To me, this smacks of a blatant, insensitive 'let them eat cake' type of chauvinism.

 * If the living are haunted by the dead. Then the dead are haunted by their own mistakes."

 * I do hereby and forever abandon abandoning all hope. Honestly, I give up on giving up. I'm just not cut out to be some hopeless, disillusioned wretch with no aspirations for the rest of the eternity, sprawled catatonic in my own feces on a cold stone floor. In all probability the Human Genome Project will, someday, find that I carry some recessive gene for optimism, because despite all my best efforts I still can't scrape together even a couple of days of hopelessness. Future scientists would call it Pollyanna Syndrome, and if forced to guess, I'd say that mine has been a way-long case of history chasing rainbows.

title: Chuck Palahniuk