there's no place like home

One's home is the happiest and most comfortable place in the world. Popularized by the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz, spoken by Judy Garland's character Dorothy as an incantation to deliver her back to Kansas. A: "Did you enjoy backpacking around Europe?" B: "Oh yeah, I had a wonderful time. It's great to be back, though—there's no place like home." I know there's no place like home, but you really ought to go out and explore the world!

Prov. Cliché Home is the most satisfying place to be. After his long trip, Bob came into his house, sat down in his favorite chair, and happily sighed, "There's no place like home." Jane: Are you glad to be home from school? Jenny: There's no place like home.

One is most comfortable in one’s own surroundings. This phrase is a quotation from the song “Home, Sweet Home” (1823), words by John Howard Payne and music by Sir Henry Rowley Bishop, from the opera Clari, introduced at London’s Covent Garden. The song, sung at the end of the first act, brought down the house (see bring down the house) and quickly became popular throughout the English-speaking world. It was used as an encore by two of the most famous singers of their time, Jenny Lind and Adelina Patti. The text alluded to is “’Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam, / Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home.” Allegedly expressing Payne’s own homesickness, the phrase echoes a sixteenth-century proverb listed by John Heywood in 1546 (“Home is homely, though it be poore in syght”) and repeated by John Ray in 1670 (“Home is home though it be never so homely”).