“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.”

Source: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900), About The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, L. Frank Baum "Philadelphia North American", (3 October 1904), as quoted by "Map of Kansas Literature" http://www.washburn.edu/reference/cks/mapping/baum/ Washburn.edu.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "When I was a boy I was tremendously interested in scarecrows. They always seemed to my childish imagination as just abo…" by L. Frank Baum?
L. Frank Baum photo
L. Frank Baum 108
Children's writer, editor, journalist, screenwriter 1856–1919

Related quotes

L. Frank Baum photo

“The Tin Woodman knew very well he had no heart, and therefore he took great care never to be cruel or unkind to anything.”

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900)
Context: The Tin Woodman knew very well he had no heart, and therefore he took great care never to be cruel or unkind to anything.
"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."

L. Frank Baum photo

“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.”

L. Frank Baum (1856–1919) Children's writer, editor, journalist, screenwriter

Letter to "Music and the Drama", The Chicago Record-Herald (3 February 1903)
Letters and essays

L. Frank Baum photo
Isabel Allende photo

“The theme of displacement is very natural for me. It always comes up in my books because I have been a foreigner all my life and I don’t feel I belong anywhere. I’m an immigrant.”

Isabel Allende (1942) Chilean writer

On how her sense of self remains tied to her native country in “Isabel Allende: 'Few couples survive the death of one child, let alone three'” https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/dec/02/isabel-allende-interview-marriage-breakup-the-japanese-lover in The Guardian (2015 Dec 2)

Jennifer Coolidge photo
Richard Feynman photo

“It requires a much higher degree of imagination to understand the electromagnetic field than to understand invisible angels. … I speak of the E and B fields and wave my arms and you may imagine that I can see them … [but] I cannot really make a picture that is even nearly like the true waves.”

Richard Feynman (1918–1988) American theoretical physicist

volume II; lecture 20, "Solution of Maxwell's Equations in Free Space"; section 20-3, "Scientific imagination"; p. 20-9 to 20-10
The Feynman Lectures on Physics (1964)

Tennessee Williams photo
Norah Jones photo

“I want to wake up with the rain
Falling on a tin roof
While I'm safe there in your arms
So all I ask is for you
To come away with me in the night
Come away with me”

Norah Jones (1979) American singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist

"Come Away With Me", Come Away With Me (2002)
Song lyrics

Related topics