Sometimes I’ll waste an evening away by scuttling from article to article on Wikipedia or IMDB, in much the same way a vagabond might troll a highway ditch in search of aluminum cans. I started thinking about my love for the original “Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory,” that 1971 classic film with Gene Wilder. But what makes it stick in the head and chill the heart?

There’s no earthly way of knowing
Which direction we are going
There’s no knowing where we’re rowing
Or which way the river’s flowing
Is it raining? / Is it snowing? / Is a hurricane a-blowing?
Not a speck of light is showing
So the danger must be growing
Are the fires of hell a-glowing?
Is the grisly reaper mowing?
Yes, the danger must be growing
‘Cause the rowers keep on rowing
And they’re certainly not showing
Any signs that they are slowing.

(video clip of scene)

Eureka! It’s the quotes. Every single bit of that movie. In a brilliant flash of screenwriting genius, this old Wonka was given a whole slew of one-liners from Shakespeare to Keats to Hillaire Belloc. “Little surprises around every corner, but nothing dangerous.” It’s a perfect mad genius archetype, his wacky mutterings closely resembling an asylum patient. The content may often seem nutty and lighthearted, but there may be something very heavy and substantial in his ramblings. Mmm, wonderfully creepy.

Among Wonka’s lines are the following quotations:

• “We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams.” from Arthur O’Shaughnessy’s Ode.
• “Is it my soul that calls me by my name?” from William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.
• “Tell me where is fancy bred, or in the heart or in the head?” from William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice.
• “All I ask is a tall ship and a star to sail her by” from the John Masefield poem “Sea Fever”.
• “A thing of beauty is a joy forever” from John Keats’s “Endymion: A Poetic Romance”.
• “Round the world and home again, that’s the sailor’s way!” from the William Allingham poem “Homeward Bound”.
• “In the spring time, the only pretty ring time, When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding; Sweet lovers love the spring.” from William Shakespeare’s “It Was a Lover and His Lass”.
• Wonka’s line “Swifter than eagles, stronger than lions” (said as the short trip on the Wonkamobile begins) comes from the Bible, specifically 2 Samuel 1:23, where David says of the recently killed King Saul and his son Jonathan, “Saul and Jonathan – in life they were loved and gracious, and in death they were not parted. They were swifter than eagles, they were stronger than lions.”
• “Bubbles, bubbles, everywhere, but not a drop to drink…yet.” adapted from a verse in Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner – “Water, water, everywhere/Nor any drop to drink.”
• “Oh, you should never, never doubt what nobody is sure about.” adapted from Hillaire Belloc’s The Microbe – “Oh! Let us never, never doubt what nobody is sure about!”
• “Invention, my dear friends, is ninety-three percent perspiration, six percent electricity, four percent evaporation, and two percent butterscotch ripple.” – adapted from Thomas Edison – “Genius is one percent inspiration, and ninety-nine percent perspiration.”
• “Candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker.” – a direct quote from Ogden Nash’s Reflections On Ice-Breaking.
• “So shines a good deed in a weary world.” – a direct quote from Act V, Scene I of William Shakespeare’s The Merchant Of Venice.
• (When entering combination for the elevator)”Ninety-nine, forty-four, one hundreths percent pure.” is the original creation for Ivory Soap
• The tinker who hints at the existence of the Oompa Loompas quotes (inaccurately) the opening verses from William Allingham’s The Fairies:
  Up the airy mountain,
  Down the rushy glen,
  We daren’t go a-hunting
  For fear of little men.”

Most from Wikipedia, with more available at IMDB.