I thought that I would like to do a selection of passages from the Wizard of Oz. Perhaps it is an odd idea, yet I feel that certain sections, while not necessarily "quote-worthy", call to mind for me my memories of the story - not the movie, but reading the original series as a child. I am realizing more and more how profoundly the series as a whole impacted my imagination. In some ways I still see emerald vistas and cloud stairways, sawhorses and patchwork girls.

"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."

"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."

~ The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, L. Frank Baum, originally published in  1900