"Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas, anymore."
If not the most famous quote from The Wizard of Oz, it is certainly the most misquoted. Many people rearrange the order just slightly when referencing Dorothy’s observation that something very strange is going on here into something closer in spirit to “I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore, Toto. ” Three quote from the film wound up on the American Film Institute’s list of the 100 most memorable in Hollywood history. Like any quote worth recalling and applying, the meaning has taken on far greater appropriation and is very often quoted not as allusion to Dorothy’s awareness of differentiation, but as a perception of something seeming strange without any context at all.
"There's no place like home."
Not just the totemic phrase endowed with the magical power to transport Dorothy home, this familiar quote is a verbal expression of one-half of the movie’s central theme. If that was the message the film is trying to convey in full, it would be a confusing line, indeed. After all, Oz seems like a pretty cool place to start calling your new home in comparison to the bleak monochromatic world of Kansas the film presents. “There’s no place like home” only takes on value within the context of Dorothy having learned this lesson by actually having been given the opportunity to make a comparison.
“If you don't hand over that dog, I'll bring a damage suit that'll take your whole farm!”
Maybe Dorothy intuitively senses that killing the Wicked Witch in Oz means that the place she calls home is going to be one without Miss Gulch when she returns. The circuitous route that Dorothy takes to peering into what the other side of the rainbow actually looks like is precipitated by the dizzy old broad’s misconception that wealth trumps equal rights. Here she is actually equating the value of the farm owned by Dorothy’s aunt and uncle with the value of her garden that Toto trespassed upon one fateful hour. Which raises the question: is the real witch in Oz or Kansas?
“I’ll get you, my pretty…and your little dog, too!”
Proving the interdimensionality of an irrational hatred of dogs, this threat directed toward Dorothy as the usurper of her rights to the ruby slipper just barely managed to become the third quote from the film to make into the AFI top 100 list. Margaret Hamilton’s delivery of the line could not be more perfect no matter what dimension in which the line is uttered.
"And remember, never let those ruby slippers off your feet for a moment, or you will be at the mercy of the Wicked Witch of the West."
Yeah, thanks for information, Good Witch. You might have passed this information along to Dorothy before you unilaterally made the decision to take transfer the shoe from the feet of the Wicked Witch’s dead sister and transfer ownership through possession to a total stanger! Glinda seems to know a lot of things that if she had only been willing to share might have saved everyone involved a whole mess of trouble.
“Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.”
What works for some American politicians in 2017 in relation to some true believers is exposed empty charlatanism on the part of some wizards in 1939 dealing with some believers starting question that faith. Oz the Great and Powerful is revealed to be nothing but spectacle and psychological chicanery. Worth noting is Toto is not only the character that pulls the curtain back to reveal that the Wizard is far less great than assumed, but he is also the one responsible for divulging that Miss Gulch is far more wicked than assumed. There is no getting around the obvious: Toto is the real hero of this story!
