Lewis Carroll Quotes

“Every adventure requires a first step.”

“Haste makes waste, so I rarely hurry. But if a ferret were about to dart up my dress, I’d run.”

“When you’ve understood this scripture, throw it away. If you can’t understand this scripture, throw it away. I insist on your freedom.”

“I am not crazy; my reality is just different from yours.”

“How fine you look when dressed in rage. Your enemies are fortunate your condition is not permanent. You’re lucky, too. Red eyes suit so few.”

“Not all who wander are lost.”

“Imagination is the only weapon in the war with reality.”

“Well, some go this way, and some go that way. But as for me, myself, personally, I prefer the short-cut.”

“Can you stand on your head?”

“The uninformed must improve their deficit, or die.”

“Goodbye, sweet hat.”

“Only a few find the way, some don’t recognize it when they do – some… don’t ever want to.”

“The proper order of things is often a mystery to me.”

“I never get involved in politics.”

“I went to a hunting party once, I didn’t like it. Terrible people. They all started hunting me!”

“No one does [play fair] if they think they can get away with it.”

“If you’re gonna make it to the top, get a grip on this rock, and get a grip on yourself.”

“I’m stranger. You’re stranger. Together, we are… strangers.”

“I could hardly afford to lose my head.”

“You may have noticed, I’m not all there myself.”

“And no scheme of ours can raise any sort of smile.”

“We are all victims in-waiting.”

“When the day becomes the night and the sky becomes the sea, when the clock strikes heavy and there’s no time for tea; and in our darkest hour, before my final rhyme, she will come back home to Wonderland and turn back the hands of time.”

“Somehow you strayed and lost your way, and now there’ll be no time to play, no time for joy, no time for friends – not even time to make amends.”

“Actually, I am right on time.”

“Never let anyone drive you crazy; it is nearby anyway and the walk is good for you.”

“I can’t know everything.”

“It’s always tea time.”

“Let your need guide your behavior.”

“Visit either you like: they’re both mad.”

“There might be some sense to your knocking,” the Footman went on, without attending to her, “if we had the door between us. For instance, if you were *inside,* you might knock and I could let you out, you know.”

“How do you like the Queen?” said the Cat in a low voice. “Not at all,” said Alice: “she’s so extremely—” Just then she noticed that the Queen was close behind her, listening: so she went on “—likely to win, that it’s hardly worth while finishing the game.”

“And what is the use of a book,” thought Alice, “without pictures or conversations?”

“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?” “That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat. “I don’t much care where—” said Alice. “Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat. “—so long as I get somewhere,” Alice added as an explanation. “Oh, you’re sure to do that,” said the Cat, “if you only walk long enough.”

“How funny it’ll seem to come out among the people that walk with their heads downwards! The antipathies, I think—”

“‘Oh, how I wish I could shut up like a telescope! I think I could, if only I knew how to begin.’ ‘For, you see, so many out-of-the-way things had happened lately, that Alice had begun to think that very few things indeed were really impossible.‘”

It was all very well to say “Drink me,” but the wise little Alice was not going to do that in a hurry. “No, I’ll look first,” she said, “and see whether it’s marked ‘poison’ or not.”

“But it’s no use now,” thought poor Alice, “to pretend to be two people! Why, there’s hardly enough of me left to make one respectable person!”

“Curiouser and curiouser!” cried Alice (she was so much surprised, that for the moment she quite forgot how to speak good English).

“I wish I hadn’t cried so much!” said Alice, as she swam about, trying to find her way out. “I shall be punished for it now, I suppose, by being drowned in my own tears! That will be a queer thing, to be sure! However, everything is queer to-day.”

“I suppose I ought to eat or drink something or other; but the great question is ‘What?’”

“I do wish I hadn’t drunk quite so much!”

“When I used to read fairy tales, I fancied that kind of thing never happened, and now here I am in the middle of one!”

“I don’t see how he can ever finish, if he doesn’t begin.”

“Well! I’ve often seen a cat without a grin,” thought Alice; “but a grin without a cat! It’s the most curious thing I ever saw in all my life!”

Speak English!” said the Eaglet. “I don’t know the meaning of half those long words, and, what’s more, I don’t believe you do either!”

“The best way to explain it is to do it.”

“If everybody minded their own business,” the Duchess said, in a hoarse growl, “the world would go round a deal faster than it does.”

“I’m older than you, and must know better.”

“The Duchess! The Duchess! Oh my dear paws! Oh my fur and whiskers! She’ll get me executed, as sure as ferrets are ferrets!”

“Who are you?” said the Caterpillar. This was not an encouraging opening for a conversation. Alice replied, rather shyly, “I—I hardly know, Sir, just at present—at least I know who I was when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then.” “What do you mean by that?” said the Caterpillar, sternly. “Explain yourself!” “I ca’n’t explain myself, I’m afraid, Sir,” said Alice, “because I am not myself, you see.”

“Tut, tut, child!” said the Duchess. “Everything’s got a moral, if only you can find it.”

“And the moral of that is—’Oh, ‘tis love, ‘tis love, that makes the world go round!’” “Somebody said,” Alice whispered, “that it’s done by everybody minding their own business!” “Ah well! It means much the same thing,” said the Duchess, digging her sharp little chin into Alice’s shoulder as she added, “and the moral of that is—‘Take care of the sense, and the sounds will take care of themselves.’”

“And the moral of that is—‘Be what you would seem to be’—or, if you’d like it put more simply—‘Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise.’”

“Really, now you ask me,” said Alice, very much confused, “I don’t think—” “Then you shouldn’t talk,” said the Hatter.

“Take some more tea,” the March Hare said to Alice, very earnestly. “I’ve had nothing yet,” Alice replied in an offended tone: “so I ca’n’t take more.” “You mean you ca’n’t take less,” said the Hatter: “It’s very easy to take more than nothing.”

“Have some wine,” the March Hare said in an encouraging tone. Alice looked all round the table, but there was nothing on it but tea. “I don’t see any wine,” she remarked. “There isn’t any,” said the March Hare. “Then it wasn’t very civil of you to offer it,” said Alice angrily. “It wasn’t very civil of you to sit down without being invited,” said the March Hare.

“When we were little,” the Mock Turtle went on at last, more calmly, though still sobbing a little now and then,” we went to school in the sea. The master was an old Turtle—we used to call him Tortoise—” “Why did you call him Tortoise, if he wasn’t one?” asked Alice. “We called him Tortoise because he taught us,” said the Mock Turtle angrily. “Really you are very dull!”

“And how many hours a day did you do lessons?” said Alice, in a hurry to change the subject. “Ten hours the first day,” said the Mock Turtle: “nine the next, and so on.” “What a curious plan!” exclaimed Alice. “That’s the reason they’re called lessons,” the Gryphon remarked: “because they lessen from day to day.”

The Queen turned crimson with fury, and, after glaring at her for a moment like a wild beast, began screaming “Off with her head! Off with—” “Nonsense!” said Alice, very loudly and decidedly, and the Queen was silent.

“No, no!” said the Queen. “Sentence first—verdict afterwards.”

“I don’t like the look of it at all,” said the King: “however, it may kiss my hand, if it likes.”

“If there’s no meaning in it,” said the King, “that saves a world of trouble, you know, as we needn’t try to find any.”

“Begin at the beginning,” the King said, very gravely, “and go on till you come to the end: then stop.”

“If you didn’t sign it,” said the King, “that only makes the matter worse. You must have meant some mischief, or else you’d have signed your name like an honest man.”

“Rule Forty-two. All persons more than a mile high to leave the court.” Everybody looked at Alice. “I’m not a mile high,” said Alice. “You are,” said the King. “Nearly two miles high,” added the Queen. “Well, I sha’n’t go, at any rate,” said Alice; “besides, that’s not a regular rule: you invented it just now.” “It’s the oldest rule in the book,” said the King. “Then it ought to be Number One,” said Alice.

Alice sighed wearily. `I think you might do something better with the time,′ she said, `than waste it in asking riddles that have no answers.′ `If you knew Time as well as I do,′ said the Hatter, `you wouldn’t talk about wasting it. It’s him.′ `I don’t know what you mean,′ said Alice. `Of course you don’t!′ the Hatter said, tossing his head contemptuously. `I dare say you never even spoke to Time!′ `Perhaps not,′ Alice cautiously replied: `but I know I have to beat time when I learn music.′ `Ah! that accounts for it,′ said the Hatter. `He won’t stand beating. Now, if you only kept on good terms with him, he’d do almost anything you liked with the clock. For instance, suppose it were nine o’clock in the morning, just time to begin lessons: you’d only have to whisper a hint to Time, and round goes the clock in a twinkling! Half-past one, time for dinner!′

`Your hair wants cutting,′ said the Hatter. He had been looking at Alice for some time with great curiosity, and this was his first speech.

`Have you guessed the riddle yet?′ the Hatter said, turning to Alice again. `No, I give it up,′ Alice replied: `what’s the answer?′ `I haven’t the slightest idea,′ said the Hatter.

`I want a clean cup,′ interrupted the Hatter: `let’s all move one place on.′

“Take off your hat,” the King said to the Hatter. “It isn’t mine,” said the Hatter. “Stolen!” the King exclaimed, turning to the jury, who instantly made a memorandum of the fact. “I keep them to sell,” the Hatter added as an explanation; “I’ve none of my own. I’m a hatter.”

“Why is a raven like a writing-desk?”

The Hatter was the first to break the silence. “What day of the month is it?” he said, turning to Alice: he had taken his watch out of his pocket, and was looking at it uneasily, shaking it every now and then, and holding it to his ear. Alice considered a little, and then said “The fourth.” “Two days wrong!” sighed the Hatter. “I told you butter wouldn’t suit the works!” he added looking angrily at the March Hare.

Alice did not wish to offend the Dormouse again, so she began very cautiously: “But I don’t understand. Where did they draw the treacle from?” “You can draw water out of a water-well,” said the Hatter; “so I should think you could draw treacle out of a treacle-well--eh, stupid?”

“It’s a great huge game of chess that’s being played—all over the world—if this is the world at all, you know.”

“Life, what is it but a dream?”

″‘It’s no use talking about it,’ Alice said, looking up at the house and pretending it was arguing with her. ‘I’m not going in again yet. I know I should have to get through the Looking-glass again – back into the old room – and there’d be an end of all my adventures!’ So, resolutely turning her back upon the house, she set out once more down the path, determined to keep straight on till she got to the hill.”

“It seems very pretty,” she said when she had finished it, “but it’s rather hard to understand!” (You see she didn’t like to confess, even to herself, that she couldn’t make it out at all.) “Somehow it seems to fill my head with ideas – only I don’t know exactly what they are! However, somebody killed something: that’s clear, at any rate – ”

″‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.’ ‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.‘”

“She very soon came to an open field, with a wood on the other side of it: it looked much darker than the last wood, and Alice felt a little timid about going into it. However, on second thoughts, she made up her mind to go on: ‘for I certainly won’t go back,’ she thought to herself, and this was the only way to the Eighth Square.”

“Oh, Kitty, how nice it would be if we could only get through into Looking-glass House! I’m sure it’s got, oh! such beautiful things in it! Let’s pretend there’s a way of getting through into it, somehow, Kitty. Let’s pretend the glass has got all soft like gauze, so that we can get through. Why it’s turning into a sort of mist now, I declare! It’ll be easy enough to get through”

″‘But oh!’ thought Alice, suddenly jumping up, ‘if I don’t make haste, I shall have to go back through the Looking-glass, before I’ve seen what the rest of the house is like! Let’s have a look at the garden first!‘”

″‘You couldn’t have it if you did want it,’ the Queen said. ‘The rule is, jam to-morrow and jam yesterday – but never jam to-day.’ ‘It must come sometimes to ‘jam to-day,″ Alice objected. ‘No, it can’t,’ said the Queen. ‘It’s jam every other day: to-day isn’t any other day, you know.‘”

″‘So I wasn’t dreaming, after all,’ she said to herself, ‘unless – unless we’re all part of the same dream. Only I do hope it’s my dream, and not the Red King’s! I don’t like belonging to another person’s dream,’ she went on in a rather complaining tone: ‘I’ve a great mind to go and wake him, and see what happens!‘”

″‘What a curious helmet you’ve got!’ she said cheerfully. ‘Is that your invention too?’ The Knight looked down proudly at his helmet, which hung from the saddle. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘but I’ve invented a better one than that – like a sugar loaf. When I used to wear it, if I fell off the horse, it always touched the ground directly. So I had a very little way to fall, you see – But there was the danger of falling into it, to be sure. That happened to me once – and the worst of it was, before I could get out again, the other White Knight came and put it on. He thought it was his own helmet.‘”

″‘I wonder, now, what the Rules of Battle are,’ she said to herself, as she watched the fight, timidly peeping out from her hiding-place. ‘One Rule seems to be, that if one Knight hits the other, he knocks him off his horse; and, if he misses, he tumbles off himself – and another Rule seems to be that they hold their clubs with their arms, as if they were Punch and Judy – What a noise they make when they tumble! Just like a whole set of fire-irons falling into the fender! And how quiet the horses are! They let them get on and off them just as if they were tables!‘”

″‘I meant by ‘impenetrability’ that we’ve had enough of that subject, and it would be just as well if you’d mention what you mean to do next, as I suppose you don’t mean to stop here all the rest of your life.′ ‘That’s a great deal to make one word mean,’ Alice said in a thoughtful tone.”

″‘I only wish I had such eyes,’ the King remarked in a fretful tone. ‘To be able to see Nobody! And at that distance too! Why, it’s as much as I can do to see real people, by this light!‘”

“The Red Queen shook her head. ‘You may call it ‘nonsense’ if you like,′ she said, ‘but I’ve heard nonsense, compared with which that would be as sensible as a dictionary!‘”

″‘Well, in our country,’ said Alice, still panting a little, ‘you’d generally get to somewhere else – if you ran very fast for a long time as we’ve been doing.’ ‘A slow sort of country!’ said the Queen. ‘Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!‘”

“Then she began looking about, and noticed that what could be seen from the old room was quite common and uninteresting, but that all the rest was as different as possible. For instance, the pictures on the wall next the fire seemed to be all alive, and the very clock on the chimney-piece (you know you can only see the back of it in the Looking-glass) had got the face of a little old man, and grinned at her.”

“The Knight looked surprised at the question. ‘What does it matter where my body happens to be?” he said. “My mind goes on working all the same.‘”

“Alice laughed. ‘There’s no use trying,’ she said: ‘one can’t believe impossible things.’ ‘I daresay you haven’t had much practice,’ said the Queen. ‘When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.‘”

“She was out of the room in a moment, and ran down stairs – or, at least, it wasn’t exactly running, but a new invention for getting down stairs quickly and easily, as Alice said to herself. She just kept the tips of her fingers on the hand-rail, and floated gently down without even touching the stairs with her feet: then she floated on through the hall, and would have gone straight out at the door in the same way, if she hadn’t caught hold of the door-post.”

“We’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.”

“How queer everything is to-day! And yesterday things went on just as usual. I wonder if I’ve been changed in the night? Let me think: *was* I the same when I got up this morning?”

“You might just as well say,” added the March Hare, “that ‘I like what I get’ is the same thing as ‘I get what I like’!” “You might just as well say, ” added the Dormouse, who seemed to be talking in his sleep, “that ‘I breathe when I sleep’ is the same thing as ‘I sleep when I breathe’!”

“We’re all mad here, I am, you are. But I’ll tell you a secret... all the best people are.”

“Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be late!”

“Well! after such a fall as this, I shall think nothing of tumbling down stairs! How brave they’ll all think me at home! Why, I wouldn’t say anything about it, even if I fell off the top of the house!”

“Do cats eat bats? Do cats eat bats?” (and sometimes) “Do bats eat cats?”

“You ought to be ashamed of yourself,” said Alice, “a great girl like you,” (she might well say this), “to go on crying in this way! Stop this moment, I tell you!”

“Let me think: was I the same when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember feeling a little different. But if I’m not the same, the next question is, Who in the world am I?”

I shall only look up and say ‘Who am I then? Tell me that first, and then, if I like being that person, I’ll come up: if not, I’ll stay down here till I’m somebody else’—

“We beg your acceptance of this elegant thimble;”

“Oh, my dear Dinah! I wonder if I shall ever see you any more!”

“I know something interesting is sure to happen,” she said to herself, “whenever I eat or drink anything; so I’ll just see what this bottle does. I do hope it’ll make me grow large again, for really I’m quite tired of being such a tiny little thing!”

“I almost wish I hadn’t gone down that rabbit-hole—and yet—and yet—it’s rather curious, you know, this sort of life!

“But then,” thought Alice, “shall I never get any older than I am now? That’ll be a comfort, one way—never to be an old woman—but then—always to have lessons to learn! Oh, I shouldn’t like that!”

“Why the fact is, you see, Miss, this here ought to have been a red rose-tree, and we put a white one in by mistake; and if the Queen was to find it out, we should all have our heads cut off, you know. So you see, Miss, we’re doing our best, afore she comes, to—

“what would become of me? They’re dreadfully fond of beheading people here; the great wonder is, that there’s any one left alive!”

″‘Not at all,’ said Alice: ‘she’s so extremely—’ Just then she noticed that the Queen was close behind her, listening: so she went on—‘likely to win, that it’s hardly worth while finishing the game.‘”

The King’s argument was, that anything that had a head could be beheaded, and that you weren’t to talk nonsense.

“And the moral of that is—‘The more there is of mine, the less there is of yours.‘”

“And then the different branches of Arithmetic—Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and Derision.”

“That’s the reason they’re called lessons,” the Gryphon remarked: “because they lessen from day to day.”

“Why, if a fish came to me, and told me he was going a journey, I should say ‘With what porpoise?‘”

For your garden is a kingdom, and your beauty is its queen.′

“You’ve no right to grow here,” said the Dormouse.

“Oh, I’ve had such a curious dream!”