Pointing out how many times characters cry in The Wizard of Oz, Rushdie observes that "if the hydrophobic Witch could only have been closer at hand on one of these occasions the movie might have been much shorter?

Checking whether there is a case of plagiarism in an academic paper in the MLA format, the given statement is from one of the student samples provided alongside the passage.

The given passage/ statement mentions how Salman Rushdie finds the scene of The Wizard of Oz. This student sample of the text provides a given opinion of the famed writer, which may act as one of the sources of the academic research paper. And by indicating the quoted words with the (" ") symbol, there is no case of plagiarism. Rather, this is the correct way of stating a given line when quoted from another source. So, the given student sample is free from any plagiarism issues.